Officers were justified in shooting Aurora man, Kane state’s attorney rules

Aurora police officers who shot a man to death last year were justified in their use of deadly force, Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser announced Friday.

Therefore, she will not file criminal charges against them.

Christopher Lepe, 19, of Aurora, was killed March 19, 2025, after getting out of his vehicle carrying a gun that looked like an automatic rifle. It turned out to be an air-powered gun.

“The officers had no way of knowing the realistic-looking rifle Mr. Lepe armed himself with and pointed at them was not real,” Mosser said in a news release.

Around 1:30 a.m. that day, Geneva police found a vehicle in a parking lot of a shopping center in the 1500 block of Randall Road. The officer believed it might be connected to reports of windows being shot by a BB gun in St. Charles, Geneva, North Aurora and Aurora.

According to the news release, Lepe was in the car with an open bottle of alcohol. He was slurring words as he spoke. When the officer ordered Lepe to get out, Lepe tried to drive away. The officer tried to grab the steering wheel and press the brake pedal. Instead, Lepe drove away, and the officer suffered a broken kneecap.

Lepe’s vehicle information was reported to police dispatch agencies. Aurora police found him and tried to pull him over, which led to a pursuit by Aurora police and Kane County deputies.

The chase ended when officers used spike strips to deflate Lepe’s tires at Broadway and Hazel Avenue in Aurora.

Officers ordered him to put his hands up and get out of the vehicle. Lepe got out carrying what appeared to be an AR-15-style rifle in one hand, pointing it up and then down.

Two Aurora officers shot him.

An autopsy showed Lepe had a blood-alcohol content of .125, and that there was cannabis in his body. The legal standard for driving under the influence of alcohol is .08.

Mosser ruled that the officers had “a reasonable belief that the deadly force they employed was necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to themselves or other individuals.”

At a vigil the day Lepe was killed, his older brother, Brian Lepe, said Lepe had had a bad day and was driving to clear his head.

“Many of us come back home. Why couldn't he come back home?” Brian Lepe said.

The Fox Valley Major Crimes Task Force investigated the shooting,and presented its findings to Mosser.