Markham
Autopsy: Victim shot five times
Oak Park man fatally struck by police outside nightclub
An Oak Park man fatally shot by police last month outside a Markham nightclub was struck five times, including once in the back, an autopsy found.
Donte Jones, 36, was shot in the chest, right upper back, right thigh, right upper arm and left hand, according to an autopsy performed by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office and reviewed by the Daily Southtown.
Jones, a father of four, had been out celebrating a friend's birthday at the Stadium nightclub, 16300 Dixie Highway, in the early morning hours of Oct. 2 when a fight erupted in the club's rear parking lot.
Police responded to calls about the fight and arrived on the scene to hear a single gunshot ring out that dispersed the crowd, according to a case report included in the autopsy filings.
The case report states that security cameras then picked up Jones walking north of the building carrying a handgun.
Exactly what followed is unclear, but the report states that police confronted Jones out of range of the cameras and shot him multiple times.
Markham Police Chief Mack Sanders said immediately after the shooting that Jones had moved “in close proximity” to an officer, who in fear for his safety, opened fire “to stop the threat.”
The Markham Police Department has neither body cameras nor dashcams, and thus there is no police footage of the fatal confrontation, he said.
Police recovered a .45-caliber Taurus handgun from Jones and discovered one shell casing from the gun, according to the autopsy case report.
Toxicology results showed that Jones had a blood-alcohol level of .042 — below the .08 legal limit to drive — and no sign of cocaine, fentanyl or opiates in his blood.
The autopsy findings confirm what members of Jones' family had heard from witnesses — that he had been shot in the back — but don't clarify the circumstances under which he was shot, the order of the shots or which of the shots proved fatal.
Greg Gilbertson, an expert in police practices and procedures who teaches criminal justice at Centralia College in Washington state, said that without more information from police, it is difficult to ascertain whether police were justified in shooting Jones in the back.
He speculated there could have been multiple officers who shot Jones from different directions or that he was hit in the front initially, turned to run away and was shot again as he spun around.
Gilbertson said there are limited instances when police are authorized to shoot a fleeing suspect.
The 1985 Supreme Court Case Tennessee v. Garner holds that police may only use deadly force against a fleeing suspect if “the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
At the time of the shooting, Markham police said that a single officer, a four-year veteran, had shot Jones.
That officer was placed on modified duty pending an investigation into the shooting, Sanders said.
The status of that investigation and the officer's current job status are unclear, as Markham Police have not responded to requests for comment in recent weeks.
Neither the Illinois State Police, whose Public Integrity Task Force is investigating whether the shooting was justified, nor a lawyer hired by Jones' family could be reached for comment Tuesday.
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