Jan. 14--Charging Park Forest police Officer Craig Taylor with reckless conduct for the death of a knife-wielding World War II veteran was "the worst form of Monday morning quarterbacking," Taylor's attorney said as the trial got underway Tuesday in a Markham courthouse.
"There was nothing reckless about what he did," said Taylor's lawyer, Terry Ekl. "He had to make an instantaneous decision based on an order from his supervisor and his own assumptions."
Cook County Associate Judge Luciano Panici will determine if Taylor's actions were criminal when he fired five beanbag rounds at John Wrana Jr., 95. Taylor is charged with a single count of reckless conduct.
In opening remarks to Panici, a Cook County prosecutor made much of the speed with which Taylor and the other officers decided to overpower the elderly man with force, saying "a matter of minutes" passed between their arrival and the firing of the beanbag rounds.
"It was unjustified and unreasonable," said Assistant State's Attorney Lynn McCarthy.
The first prosecution witness, Kirsten Kielly, business office manager at Victory Centre of Park Forest, waved a metal cane aloft to show the judge how she saw Wrana wield the same cane as paramedics tried to take him to the hospital in July 2013.
Kielly said Wrana came at the paramedics "really fast," but she wasn't frightened.
"I knew that wasn't John," she testified. "And I could just run down the hall (to escape)."
The courtroom was divided by Wrana's relatives and supporters and numerous police officers supporting Taylor.
"Having been a police officer for 24 years, I've been in numerous situations where people try to Monday morning quarterback and say what you should have done, what you shouldn't have done," Robbins police Chief Mitchell Davis told reporters before the trial began. "And unless you're there and you're exposed to all the things that are involved and what's going on, it's hard to speak on that."
Asked on his way into the courthouse if Taylor would testify in his own defense, Ekl said, "If he needs to, he will."
The bench trial comes amid national discord over police accountability after unarmed black men died at the hands of white officers in Missouri and New York and no one was indicted. But race has not been an issue in this case -- Wrana was white and Taylor is black. However, similar concerns over aggressive police tactics have been raised.
The charge against Taylor, a police officer since 2004, is a rare criminal prosecution by Cook County authorities against an on-duty officer.
State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has said that "other viable options" could have been used to subdue Wrana besides the "violent extrication" chosen by Park Forest police. Taylor, one of five on a team of officers at the scene, fired a series of rapid beanbag shots at close range at the senior citizen.
But all the officers told state police investigators that Wrana ignored their repeated warnings to drop the weapon and approached them with the serrated knife raised above his head. And Ekl, has said Wrana, who was acting erratically, could have killed himself with the knife if officers hadn't acted quickly.
"My job was to protect and serve, and that's what I did that night," Taylor, 44, told the Tribune last fall in his first public comments since he was charged with reckless conduct.
Police were called to the retirement home in southwest suburban Park Forest after Wrana resisted efforts by staff and paramedics to take him to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, striking one paramedic with his cane. By the time the five officers gathered outside his apartment, Wrana was holding a knife with a 7-inch blade and threatening to throw it or cut officers with it.
Moments later, police Cmdr. Michael Baugh led the way into Wrana's apartment carrying a ballistic shield and tried to subdue the elderly man with a Taser, but the prongs missed. Taylor, who had been instructed by Baugh to use the beanbag rounds if the Taser didn't work, then fired at Wrana until he dropped the knife -- five rounds in all.
Wrana died about five hours later after refusing surgery to stanch the internal bleeding that resulted after he was struck in the abdomen.
"When there's somebody who does what everybody is asking him to do -- once again it was a tragic outcome -- now he's being prosecuted for it," said Davis, who once worked for the Park Forest Police Department but not with Taylor. "Now what do you want officers to do? Now it makes it so much more difficult as police officers for us to proceed at this point."
With few of the facts about what happened that night in dispute, the trial may hinge on testimony from expert witnesses.
The one hired by Taylor -- Steve Ijames, a former Springfield, Mo., assistant police chief who now consults on use-of-force cases -- has said Taylor acted properly and would have been justified in using his service weapon to stop Wrana. Park Forest Deputy Chief Christopher Mannino, who was Taylor's training supervisor, is expected to testify in much the same way.
Prosecutors intend to call an expert of their own -- Francis R. Murphy, a Florida-based consultant on police tactics -- to rebut those claims. In his 17-page report, Murphy said the officers should have used their ballistic shield to knock Wrana down and acted improperly in deploying a Taser and beanbag rounds.
"The situation went from the refusal to provide a voluntary urine sample to death at the hands of police use of unreasonable force," wrote Murphy, noting that officers never used pepper spray or gave Wrana time to cool off. "The existing situation demanded patience, and it is obvious that the police just wanted to quickly end the standoff and seize Wrana."
Another police consultant contacted by the state's attorney's office concluded the officers followed proper procedure, according to a letter that the prosecutor assigned to the case sent Ekl.
Along with the knife Wrana was holding, Taylor's attorney has indicated he wants the judge to see the ballistic vest and shield used by the Park Forest officers.
Wrana's family has filed a lawsuit against Taylor and Park Forest.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
