Contested investigations. A $16 million settlement. A civil trial that ended in head-scratching fashion. Two bar scuffles, with one ending in his acquittal on criminal battery charges at trial last summer.
Over the last 3½ years, Chicago Police Officer Robert Rialmo has been in courtrooms for reasons usually unwelcome by police. But for the 30-year-old Marine veteran, Monday’s proceedings at the Daley Center will have the highest stakes yet.
For three days this week, the Chicago Police Board will hold evidentiary hearings that will be used to decide Rialmo’s fate with the CPD, though it will likely be several months before a decision is made as to his future with the department.
It was in the early hours of Dec. 26, 2015, that Rialmo and his partner responded to a call of a domestic disturbance at a two-flat at 4710 W. Erie St. It was there, moments after his arrival, that Rialmo shot and killed 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier — who was in the midst of a mental episode — after he charged at Rialmo with an aluminum baseball bat.
One of Rialmo’s bullets also struck and killed 52-year-old Bettie Jones, the LeGriers’ downstairs neighbor who opened the door for Rialmo when he and his partner, Anthony LaPalermo, arrived. It was the first fatal shooting by a CPD officer after the release of the Laquan McDonald video.
Joel Brodsky, the attorney who represented Rialmo in two trials last year, repeatedly said that Rialmo’s professional and legal troubles were the byproduct of political pressure on former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration in the wake of the McDonald shooting.
Last summer, Rialmo took questions from reporters for the first time since the shooting, saying: “I feel that people have the wrong idea of myself.”
“It’s been a tough road, I’ll be honest,” he said. “It’s been a long couple [of] years.”
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended that police Supt. Eddie Johnson refer Rialmo for termination for the shooting. Johnson, though, said the shooting was justified and within department policy.
That impasse meant that a single member of the Chicago Police Board had to decide whether to move Rialmo’s case to the full board. In April 2018, board member Eva-Nina Delgado opted to do just that. Seven months later, Johnson filed several charges against Rialmo, recommending he be fired.
The charges against Rialmo allege action or conduct impeding department efforts to achieve its policy and goals or bringing discredit upon the department; disobeying an order or directive; inattention to duty; incompetency or inefficiency in the performance of duty; and unlawful or unnecessary use or display of a weapon.
The charges brought against Rialmo do not mention LeGrier and focus largely on Jones’ death.
“Officer Robert Rialmo, Star No. 15588, without justification, used force likely to cause death or great bodily harm without a reasonable belief that such force was necessary when he fired his weapon one or more times in the direction of Bettie Jones, hitting Ms. Jones and causing her death,” Johnson wrote in the charges.
The department also cited Rialmo for “inattention to duty” and “incompetency or inefficiency in the performance of duty” for not being certified to carry a stun gun for nearly two years before the shooting.
The estates of both Jones and LeGrier sued Rialmo and the city. Rialmo countersued the LeGrier estate, as well as the city, arguing that he was poorly trained to handle the situation he found himself in. He later dropped that complaint.
In an even more controversial move, attorneys for the city also countersued the LeGrier estate. That suit, too, was dropped before going to trial. Emanuel called the decision to sue the LeGrier estate “callous,” and he later called LeGrier’s father to apologize.
The Jones estate settled for $16 million last summer.
After an eight-day trial, the jury awarded the LeGrier estate $1.05 million in damages but that was immediately nullified after jurors said, effectively, that Rialmo was justified when he opened fire. The LeGrier estate appealed, but was denied a new trial last October.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office opted to not bring criminal charges against Rialmo for the shooting, though he was charged with misdemeanor battery after he punched out two men at a Northwest Side bar in 2017. He was found not guilty, though he was involved in another bar scuffle just a few days later.
