Des Plaines cops fatally shoot ax-wielding man

Saima Siddiqui thought her worst nightmare was about to come true when she heard what sounded like someone arguing loudly outside the door early Monday morning, then saw several men charging toward her Des Plaines home.

I'm about to be robbed, she thought.

"Before I could even process anything, I heard gun shots," she said. "At that point, I completely lost it because I was hiding in the kitchen."

Siddiqui and several other Oxford Road residents called 911. Siddiqui had no idea the shots were fired by Des Plaines police at a 24-year-old man who, according to police reports, had been threatening officers with a long-handled ax in front of her home.

Police said the man was shot at least four times after refusing to drop the weapon. He died a short time later.

"I'm OK now," Siddiqui said hours after the incident. "I was shook out of my mind. I didn't think it was police officers. I thought they were robbers."

Krzysztof Kaczor, who lived just a few blocks away, was pronounced dead at 2:14 a.m. at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, the Cook County medical examiner's office said Monday.

Des Plaines Police Chief Jim Prandini said officers were called to the 400 block of Washington at 1:15 a.m. with a report of shots being fired.

He said that as one officer made his way into the area, he spotted Kaczor running, carrying the long-handled ax, on the 200 block of Oxford Road. The officer got out of his car, drew his gun and ordered Kaczor to drop the ax.

Prandini said Kaczor turned toward the officer, held the ax in a threatening manner and approached. The officer told Kaczor multiple times to drop the ax, but the order was ignored, Prandini said.

"So, after telling the offender multiple times to drop the ax and fearing for his life, the officer shot the offender in the torso," Prandini said. "The offender died from his injuries a short time later at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital."

Area residents were stunned such a thing could occur in their peaceful neighborhood.

"It was terrifying," said Steve Katz, who witnessed the shooting from his front window. "That never happened here before."

Prandini said the officer has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Unit. That's standard procedure when an officer is involved in a shooting, he said.

"From our perspective, the officer did what he was trained to do - respond to a deadly force situation with the use of deadly force," Prandini said. "It's been a few years since we've had an officer-involved shooting."

In 1995, a veteran Des Plaines police officer shot and killed a man who pointed a BB gun that looked like a handgun at the officer in a domestic disturbance call. The shooting was found justified.

In November 1999, a Des Plaines police officer shot and killed a 41-year-old man who had had several run-ins with the law when he waved a baseball bat at police after a dispute with his mother.

At the time, police said it was a "classic case of suicide by cop," while the victim's family and friends were outraged by what they considered an unjustified use of force by police.

Prandini said the threat in Monday's case was real and the officer involved made a split-second decision. Officers are not trained to disable a threat; they are trained to eliminate it, he said.

"The distance that the officer had between him and the offender was to the point that it merited deadly force," Prandini said. "It's a lousy situation for an officer to have to be in."

Kaczor, who emigrated from Poland in 1999, was a technician for a surveillance and security alarm company.

It remains unclear why police were called to the Washington Street neighborhood for shots being fired, Prandini said, as there was no evidence shots were fired.

"We were able to determine that the call for the shots fired came from (the house on) Washington Street where the victim lived," Prandini said.

He said police interviewed several people living at that location.

"The only thing we can determine at this point is he was drinking the night before," Prandini said about Kaczor.

Police are awaiting toxicology test results to determine Kaczor's blood alcohol level at the time of his death.

Prandini said Kaczor had a pending case from November when he was arrested in Chicago for driving under the influence. Police have been called to Kaczor's home a few times before on complaints of underage drinking, but he was never arrested, Prandini said.

"There were a couple of other arrests on his rap sheet - drugs, traffic, larceny," he said.

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