Chicago police kill 19-year-old, mother of five after responding to domestic call

A 19-year-old man and a mother of five were killed by Chicago police early on Saturday morning.

Quintonio LeGrier, a college student, and Bettie Jones, one of his next-door neighbors, were fatally shot by a Chicago Police Department officer after police responded to a domestic disturbance call.

In a statement, the Chicago Police Department said that officers had confronted a “combative subject.”

The Chicago Tribune reported that LeGrier, who was shot seven times, had been struggling with mental health issues. His father reportedly called the police after he began acting agitated and threatening his family with a bat.

From the Tribune report:

LeGrier’s father told the downstairs neighbor not to engage with LeGrier, and to keep an eye out for police.

Witnesses said [Bettie Jones] was…the downstairs tenant of the building.

The gunshots woke Latisha Jones, and she got up to find her mother lying near the door with a gunshot wound to the neck.

Latisha Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times that “police shot her mother from outside the home after she opened the door.” Bettie Jones’ brother, Melvin, told the Associated Press that his sister had celebrated Christmas with over a dozen family members the night before she was killed.

Reuters journalist Justin Madden reported that Jones had been undergoing treatment for cancer:

Quintonio LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey, told the Tribune that she didn’t understand why police had shot her son.

“What are they trained for? Just to kill?” she said. “I thought that we were supposed to get service and protection. I mean, my son was an honors student. He’s here for Christmas break, and now I’ve lost him.”

The deaths come as the CPD finds itself under intense national scrutiny, thanks to scandals over the killing of black teenager Laquan McDonald and the Homan Square detention center, which has been likened to a CIA black site. The CPD is under investigation by the Justice Department, which is seeking to determine “whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law by officers.”

In a separate incident, Chicago police shot and seriously wounded one man on Saturday after reportedly responding to a shootout. Police also killed a dog and wounded another dog in a third incident on Friday night.