Family Sues Elgin Police Over Fatal Shooting After Tollway Standoff
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The family of a woman shot and killed by an Elgin police officer in March has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.
Attorneys Antonio Romanucci and Andrew Stroth filed the federal lawsuit against the Elgin Police Department, Lt. Christian Jensen, who shot Decynthia Clements when she exited her SUV carrying a knife after a more than hour-long standoff on the Jane Addams Tollway on March 12. Ten other unnamed officers are listed as defendants.
The shooting was captured on police body camera video.
Officers had tried to pull Clements over in Elgin, but she fled from police, and later stopped her SUV on the Addams Tollway. Police said, after noticing she had a knife, officers spent more than an hour trying to talk her into surrendering peacefully.
When a fire started inside the vehicle, officers approached to try and pull her out. Video released by Elgin police ends with Clements stepping out of the SUV, and officers yelling at her to drop a knife before three shots are fired, fatally wounding her.
Police and city officials have said it appeared Clements, 34, was suicidal. Toxicology tests later revealed she had cocaine in her bloodstream.
According to the lawsuit, Jensen was holding a protective shield, another officer was holding a Taser, and a third was holding a gun loaded with rubber bullets, but the officers still decided to use deadly force "without any reasonable cause or provocation."
Attorneys for the Clements family said police had lengthy discussions about ending the standoff through de-escalation tactics and non-lethal force.
"The plan was to take her down without using lethal force. They actually were quoted as stating 'We're not going to end it for her.' Everybody followed that plan except for one officer," Romanucci said.
The officers can be heard talking about using the shield and Taser to subdue Clements in the seconds before she was killed.
The lawsuit claims Jensen could not see whether Clements had anything in her hands, due to the heavy smoke coming out of the car, but still shot her after she had taken only one step out of her vehicle.
Clements' family has said she was only 5-foot-3 and 103 pounds, and was not a threat to officers trained in deadly force and equipped with shields and body armor.
"I still don't see that they should have used deadly force on a female that only weighed 100 pounds," her cousin Demitrius Smith said.
Relatives said, even if Clements was high on drugs or suffering a psychotic episode, it wasn't necessary for police to shoot her.
"You can see a person one way, in a situation at one time in her life, but that does not justify for one person to try and play God, and shoot three times; twice in the head, once in the chest, you're shooting to kill," said her sister, Emmetia Sneed.
Jensen was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, pending the results of an investigation by Illinois State Police.
An Elgin Police Department spokesperson said officials have not seen the lawsuit yet, but said, "The city understands and respects the Clements family's need for answers and asks for patience while the state police completes its investigation and the Cook County state's attorney conducts its review."
