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Posted by: kwflatbed

ANNIE SWEENEY
Chicago Sun Times

The Chicago Police Department has moved again to fire an officer who shot and killed an innocent bystander outside a downtown nightclub in 2003 after he said he got into a shoot-out with carjackers.
In arguing Donyal Williams should be fired, the department concluded that he failed to secure his weapon, made a false report, was intoxicated, fired his weapon while intoxicated and fired into a crowd, putting citizens in danger.
The victim, Eric Jones, formerly worked at the Board of Trade but had fallen on hard times when he was shot by Williams, a 14-year officer who said he got into a shoot-out with men after one or more tried to carjack him outside a club at 151 W. Ohio.
Williams fired his 9mm pistol at least 12 times; the alleged carjackers fired off at least seven rounds, according to reports. Jones was ducking for cover when he was shot.
An offender who was involved pleaded guilty.
The city first moved to fire Williams, 40, in February 2007. The Chicago Police Board ordered in October that Williams, who has received several department awards and had no other complaints sustained against him, receive a three-year suspension.
In November, interim Police Supt. Dana Starks filed a complaint in Cook County Circuit Court asking for the decision to be reviewed, which could take six months.
Williams never denied he had had a few beers at home before leaving for the nightclub, but he has maintained he never saw Jones and that he shot to protect himself.
"Unfortunately there was a citizen that was killed,'' Jim Thompson, his attorney, said. Williams "regrets to this day [Jones] was killed.''
At the Police Board hearing, an expert testified that the officer's alcohol level would have been between 0.114 and 0.171 -- above the legal limit for driving -- when he fired his weapon.
Williams told investigators his gun was in a locked center console of his SUV before the shooting. An investigator for the Police Department's Office of Professional Standards inspected the vehicle and found that was not true, according to testimony at the hearing.
The OPS investigation concluded a crowd was gathering and that Williams was aware of this. "The department believes that if Officer Williams wasn't intoxicated . . . his choices would have been to retreat and not fire or unload his entire weapon into a crowd,'' city attorney Anna D'Ascenzo said, according to transcripts.
Thompson said Williams was driving a new SUV for the first time and that the car he regularly drove did have a locked console.
The board found Williams guilty of failing to secure his weapon, being drunk, firing his weapon while drunk and giving false reports about how his gun was secured. But it said the department failed to prove that Williams put citizens in harm's way by firing into a crowd.

Wire service

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