Buffalo Grove police officers who fatally shot an armed man during a December 2021 encounter acted in self-defense and should not face prosecution, the Cook County state’s attorney‘s office has decided.
“Based on the evidence reviewed in this matter and the applicable legal standards, the evidence is insufficient to support the filing of criminal charges as the use of deadly force … was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances,” the office’s Law Enforcement Accountability Division states in a five-page memo.
The shooting occurred shortly after midnight on Dec. 2, 2021, when the two officers were dispatched in response to a 911 call about a man firing shots at the village’s Mill Creek Park.
The caller, Brian Christopher Howard, 25, of Elgin, later admitted that he was the armed man. In a recording of the call, Howard, who was living with family in Buffalo Grove, repeatedly requests that police respond and use “lethal” force. The dispatcher asks Howard to drop his weapons, but he refuses, saying he was a “bad dude” and wanted the police to “end this.”
Video of the confrontation taken from a patrol vehicle camera shows Howard firing two handguns into the air while walking toward the officers, who repeatedly tell him to stop and drop the weapons. Howard is then shot. The memo states one officer fired three shots and the other fired seven.
“(T)he evidence shows that (the two officers) each had a reasonable belief that Brian Howard put both officers in imminent danger of great bodily harm or death,” the state’s attorney‘s memo states.
The state’s attorney‘s office referred the case for further review to the Office of the Illinois State’s attorney‘s Appellate Prosecutor, which concurred that charges are not appropriate.
Howard’s mother, Kristine Howard, said Sunday she disagrees with the findings and believes the officers should be held accountable.
Howard, who now lives in Colorado, said her son had struggled with anxiety and depression since his teenage years but was taking steps to get better in late 2021 and about to start a new job.
“I know that my son was not a danger to anyone, and I know my son put himself in a park in the middle of the night so that nobody else would get hurt,” she said. “Clearly, when you listen to the 911 call, he had no intention of hurting anyone. It was a suicide call. He needed help. He wasn’t (in) an active shooter situation. He was a young man who was suffering a mental health break and he needed help.”
Buffalo Grove Village President Eric Smith said in a statement Sunday that such situations are “undoubtedly challenging and emotional for all involved.”
“And we respect the thorough investigation into the incident by the (state’s attorney‘s office),” Smith added.
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