Female Officer Screw up in Police Fatal shooting. Morris Police Department Sept. 29

1 year ago
1.12K

Alivia Schwab, 40, of Morris is shot three times after she held a 9-inch-long chef's kitchen and kept walking toward Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella, disobeying his commands to drop her knife. (Body camera footage from Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella )
MORRIS, IL — Less than one month after Grundy County State's Attorney Russell Baker issued a three-page report finding that Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella was justified in his use of deadly force, authorities have released all the body-camera videos surrounding Pampinella's deadly encounter with 40-year-old Morris resident Alivia Schwab on Sept. 29.

The two officers at the center of the deadly confrontation that ended Schwab's life were Pampinella, who has been a Morris police officer for over three years, and fellow officer Casie Price, who has been a Morris police officer since the spring of 2022.

Morris police have said their officers were called to the 1800 block of Anne Lane just before 11 a.m. for a report of a suicidal person.

Alivia Schwab, 40, of Morris is shot three times, including in the face, after she held a 9-inch-long chef's knife and kept walking toward Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella and disobeyed his commands to drop her knife. Body camera video via Officer Pampinella
According to the body camera videos that the Morris Police Department released late Friday afternoon, Pampinella can be heard taking charge of the incident. Even though he told officer Price to prepare to deploy her Taser at the 40-year-old Morris woman, Price does not do so as Schwab continues to slowly walk from her apartment, past the sidewalk and into the paved parking lot, toward Officer Pampinella, who is backpedaling and ordering Schwab to drop her 9-inch-long chef's knife. Instead, Schwab keeps walking closer to him, gripping the knife tightly in her left hand as she remained on the phone with a crisis hotline.

You can watch the entire video, from Pampinella's body camera vantage point, at the bottom of this article.

At the 1:28 mark, Pampinella sees Schwab emerge from her apartment, on the phone and with the knife in her hand. Shortly after their arrival, Pampinella advises Officer Price "you go non-lethal."

Meanwhile, Schwab keeps slowly walking at him and does not say anything.

"Hi, miss. Miss, drop the knife, drop the knife," Pampinella commands. "Drop, stop coming towards me! Stop coming towards me!"

Morris Police Officer Casie Price stands in the background and does not deploy her Taser as Alivia Schwab approaches Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella with a 9-inch-long knife. Pampinella fatally shot her after she refused to drop her chef's knife. Body camera video via Officer Pampinella
At the 1:37 mark, Pampinella yells, "Stop where you are, miss. Stop where you are!

"Drop the knife!" Pampinella screams. "Drop the knife. Drop the knife, miss.

"Stop it, stop it, or you're going to get shot."

At 1:43, Pampinella tells Officer Price to deploy her Taser.

"Casie, tase her," he yells.

As Officer Price continues to stand there, she does not deploy her Taser.

Alivia Schwab, 40, of Morris is shot three times, including in the face, after she held a 9-inch-long chef's knife and kept walking toward Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella. Body camera video via Officer Pampinella
At 1:47, as Schwab continues to encroach upon him, Pampinella opens fire, shooting Schwab in the head and firing a total of four rounds.

Schwab suffered three gunshot wounds.

About a minute later, as other Morris police arrive on the scene, Pampinella tells one of them, "She started running at me with a f****** knife, man."

According to his LinkedIn profile, Pampinella is the K-9 officer for Morris police, a 2019 graduate of Western Illinois University. He also worked for eight months in 2019-2010 at Rantoul's Police Department before joining the Morris police force in March 2020.

After college, he also served as an intern at the Sandwich Police Department. Pampinella also grew up and graduated from high school in nearby Dwight. Grundy County's news radio station did a feature story on him when Pampinella joined the Morris police nearly four years ago.

"With regard to the events of September 29, 2023, I have reviewed the evidence gathered in the preliminary investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police and am prepared to release a preliminary opinion that Alivia L. Schwab was in a psychotic suicidal state of mind while armed with a 9-inch chef's knife and aggressively attacked police ignoring all commands to stop and drop the weapon," Grundy County State's Attorney Baker declared in his report issued in November.

Grundy State’s Attorney Russ Baker retired in December 2019 from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office after over 30 years of service prosecuting every type of violent felony, with a

Loading 4 comments...