Bettie Jones’ daughter runs from court in tears after seeing photo of shooting scene

It took three days to get Latisha Jones into court to testify in the Police Board evidentiary hearings for Chicago Police Officer Robert Rialmo — the man who killed her mother 3 ½ years ago.

Leaning back in the chair on the witness stand, mumbling her words and sometimes covering her mouth, it was clear she didn’t want to be there. It was even clearer when she wanted to leave.

After one of Rialmo’s attorneys used an easel to display an enlarged photo of the blood-stained vestibule where her mother and Quintonio LeGrier died in December 2015, Jones burst into tears and ran out of the courtroom, abruptly ending the third day of hearings.

Legal exhibit

Closing arguments are set to be delivered Thursday afternoon, though a decision by the full Police Board as to Rialmo’s future is not expected for another few months.

Before her dramatic exit, Jones described how her mother, Bettie Jones, 55, insisted that her daughter not answer when Rialmo rang the doorbell.

Rialmo and his partner were responding to several calls of a domestic disturbance involving LeGrier and his father, who lived upstairs in the two-flat at 4710 W. Erie St.

The elder LeGrier had barricaded himself in his bedroom as his son — who was in the midst of a mental health crisis — tried to get in with an aluminum baseball bat. The elder LeGrier had asked Bettie Jones to let the police in when they arrived.

Once the officers were on the front porch, LeGrier came running down the stairs with the bat, taking two swings at Rialmo before the officer opened fire, killing LeGrier, 19, and Bettie Jones. It is still contested as to whether the bullet that killed Bettie Jones was a stray or if it passed through LeGrier’s body first.

Latisha Jones, 23, was in the bathroom of her mother’s first-floor apartment when the gunfire rang out. Initially, she said, she thought it was coming from further away because she had heard gunfire on the block a few days earlier, which she attributed to a gang conflict in the area.

“I was quiet,” she testified. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move.”

When she walked out of the bathroom, she saw her mother lying face-up on the floor, crying. Latisha Jones put her hand under her mother’s head to cradle it, and soon after saw blood on her own hand. Her mother, shot once in the chest, couldn’t speak. Latisha Jones checked her pulse and tried her best to comfort her as her mother gasped for air.

“It’s OK. It’s OK. Just fight it,” she recalled saying Wednesday.

Rialmo, sitting about 10 feet away, stared at the floor during much of her testimony.

Soon after, during cross-examination from Jim Thompson, one of Rialmo’s lawyers, Latisha Jones ran out of court in tears.

The Jones estate sued the city over the shooting and reached a $16 million settlement shortly before going to trial last summer. The Police Board charges against Rialmo focus entirely on Bettie Jones’ death.

Sun-Times file photo

The charges 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.

Rialmo — whose attorneys have worked to show that LeGrier forced him to shoot — also testified Wednesday, the second he’s done so this week.

The 30-year-old Marines veteran said he “won’t ever get over” what happened to Jones.

“‘Tragedy’ is an understatement, in my mind, for what happened to Ms. Jones,” Rialmo said. “She’s the victim.”

“That’s the worst 10 minutes of my life,” he said of the shooting.

One of Rialmo’s former lieutenants, a friend who’s now a detective, as well as Ald. Nick Sposato (38^th) also testified Wednesday as character witnesses for Rialmo.

Sposato — a former Chicago firefighter — has known Rialmo since he was a child. Rialmo’s father, a retired Chicago firefighter himself, would often bring his children to the firehouse he shared with Sposato.

The alderman, who lamented the intense scrutiny Rialmo has faced in recent years, said the officer has “awesome character. His character is not in question here.”

“Nobody should ever have to go through the situation he went through that day, but it happens,” Sposato said. “That’s a policeman’s worst day.”