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Chicago Cop Tells His Side Of Quintonio LeGrier Shooting, In New Filing

(CBS) -- The Chicago police officer in the fatal shootings of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones is telling his own side of the story.

Officer Robert Rialmo's attorney filed a counterclaim against LeGrier's estate detailing that night from the officer's perspective.

CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports.

In the filing, new details are revealed about what happened that night, such as LeGrier charging down a stairway toward the officer, swinging a bat at him three times and how neighbor Jones became an innocent victim.

"The facts in this case clearly show Officer Rialmo didn't do anything wrong, that the instigator of this incident was Quintonio LeGrier," the officer's attorney, Joel Brodsky, says.

Rialmo responded to a call of a man with a bat at the LeGrier family residence. The counterclaim says LeGrier "took a full swing at Officer Rialmo's head, missing it by inches."

"He told me that he felt the breeze of the bat passing in front of his face -- it was that close," Brodsky tells Le Mignot.

"That entire time he was shouting orders for LeGrier to drop the bat," Brodsky adds.

Rialmo shot LeGrier six times. When the shots were fired, the counterclaim says, LeGrier's body blocked Rialmo's view of Jones, the woman who had opened the door to the apartment building when officers arrived in response to a disturbance call.

Brodsky says he's filing the counterclaim because police officers can suffer damages like anyone.

"This is an emotional and psychological trauma that Officer Rialmo is going to have to carry with him for the rest of his life," the attorney says.

The counterclaim seeks punitive and emotional damages for Rialmo, ranging from $50,000 to $10 million.

LeGrier family attorney Bill Foutris has said Quintonio never posed a danger, threat, or harm to any Chicago police officer before he was shot.

Larry Rogers Jr., the attorney for Jones' family, says there is no evidence Jones was blocked from Officer Rialmo's view.

"The officers knew there were innocent people in the home," he says. Rogers calls this "a lame excuse for firing into a house."

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