Officer Rialmo testifies in Quintonio LeGrier shooting case

There was drama at the Daley Center Tuesday as a Chicago police officer involved in a controversial shooting that left two people dead took the witness stand.

In less than an hour of testimony, Officer Robert Rialmo said little regarding his shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones three years ago. But he said an awful lot to embarrass the Chicago Police Department.

Officer Rialmo testified that prior to receiving the call about a domestic disturbance at LeGrier's home, he and his partner were sitting in their vehicle watching Netflix. He said he didn't have a taser with him because he never bothered to renew his certification and he said his expanding baton, called an ASP, was elsewhere in his backpack when LeGrier confronted him with a baseball bat. His lawyer says he wouldn't have used the baton anyway.

“An ASP against a baseball bat, the ASP was going to lose that. It’s just a thin strip of metal,” said attorney Joel Brodsky.

On the witness stand, Rialmo also admitted he has previously described the training he received at the police academy as a joke. That's why Rialmo has filed his own lawsuit, claiming he should be compensated for poor training by CPD and for what he's endured since his accidental shooting of Bettie Jones. She was an innocent bystander who was with LeGrier when police arrived.

“They put him in a situation where the effects of which he had to take an innocent life and something that's going to haunt him until the day he dies,” Rialmo said.

Bill Foutris, an attorney for the LeGrier family, mocked that claim, asking Rialmo, "You're asking this jury to give you ten million dollars for killing Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones?" Rialmo's attorneys objected before he could answer.

Rialmo will be back on the stand Wednesday where he's expected to describe in detail just how the double fatal shooting went down.