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Mom wants cops, parents to talk about shooting near school

Authorities Wednesday defended the actions of Carpentersville police officers involved in a drug buy that led to shots being fired near a middle school and a high-speed chase through several suburbs a day earlier.

Carpentersville police Cmdr. Tim Bosshart, the department public information officer, said officers were forced to make split-second decisions when one of the suspects rammed his vehicle into an unmarked squad car and fled, injuring two officers inside the unmarked car.

Several shots were fired into the car, Bosshart said. At least one shot struck the driver, who led police on a high-speed chase before surrendering in Itasca, 20 miles away.

“When you’re in the situation, you’ve got to look at the totality of the circumstances and if it is a deadly-force issue,” Bosshart said. “And it was on Tuesday. He tried to hit the officers with his car.”

Bosshart added that although snow had fallen in the area, driving conditions were not dangerous.

“It is hard to make that decision sitting at a desk,” Bosshart said. “But I talked to the officer and he said in reality, conditions weren’t that bad. He did consider that throughout the chase.”

Guidelines from the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, a state agency mandated to promote and maintain a high level of professional standards for law enforcement and correctional officers, suggest the use of deadly force was justified.

A deadly force assailant is defined as a person whose actions will probably cause death or great bodily harm. The officers’ response, the guidelines say, could include firearms or other measures that could result in death or great bodily harm to the assailant.

Furthermore, the board guidelines say a police officer may initiate a pursuit if two factors are met. The first, if a suspect is attempting to evade apprehension, and two, if the suspect may present danger to a human life or cause serious injury if allowed to escape.

Police arrested one person on the scene in Carpentersville and charges were filed Wednesday.

Sentoro Dunn, 40, of the 7300 block of Ashton Villa in Rockford, was charged with one count of delivery of a controlled substance, according to court records. The charge is a Class X felony that carries a prison term of 6 to 30 years, if convicted. A judge Wednesday set Dunn’s bail at $1 million. He must pay 10 percent to be released.

Bosshart said Dunn and another man were involved in a transaction with Carpentersville police just before 1 p.m. Tuesday. Officers arranged to meet Dunn and another man in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant on South Kennedy Drive in Carpentersville to sell 1 kilogram of cocaine. As officers moved in to detain the suspects, one of the men tried to ram an unmarked police car, and police opened fire.

The suspect, in a beige Cadillac, then jumped a curb and fled east along Route 72 through East Dundee, Barrington, Hoffman Estates and Streamwood, before turning south at Roselle Road. The suspect headed east on Irving Park Road and surrendered in the parking lot of a McDonald’s at 1301 E. Irving Park Road in Itasca.

The suspect was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he remained Wednesday. Bosshart said charges would be filed once the suspect was released from the hospital.

State police are investigating the incident because Carpentersville police fired their weapons, a state police spokeswoman said. Bosshart confirmed the state police had been called in to investigate.

“It’s to show objectivity so we’re not investigating ourselves,” Bosshart said.

Lakewood School, which is across the street from the restaurant, was placed on a “code red” lockdown. Community Unit District 300 Public Safety Officer Gary Chester told a Daily Herald reporter Tuesday that a piece of metal, which may have been a bullet fragment, struck a classroom window and tore the screen. The window did not break. There were six students and a teacher in the classroom at the time. No one was injured.

Allison Strupeck, District 300 Director of Communications, confirmed a metal fragment was found at the scene. Repeated requests to photograph the damaged window were denied by district officials, and calls for comment from Superintendent Michael Bregy and Lakewood Principal Tim Loversky were not returned.

Monica Boutwell, of Carpentersville, learned about the shooting from her fifth-grade daughter as they drove past the yellow crime scene tape. She said she can’t understand why police would arrange an undercover drug buy so close to the school and during school hours.

“I think it was very careless,” Boutwell said Thursday morning after dropping her daughter off at school. “I think it was really bad judgment.”

And she wants answers.

She intends to arrange a meeting that involves village officials, the police department and parents.

“I think they should take responsibility and answer questions (about) why they would do that so close to our kids’ school,” Boutwell said.

Illinois State Police Spokeswoman Monique Bond said fragments had been recovered from the school and were submitted as evidence for testing. It is unclear if the fragments were a result of the shooting, but Bond said they would be part of the investigation.

Sentoro Dunn
  Itasca Police check a car with its rear window shot out in the parking lot of a McDonald’s Tuesday afternoon. George Leclaire/gleclaire@dailyherald.com
  A Carpentersville Police car blocks access along Ravine Lane Tuesday afternoon following a confrontation between police and two suspects and a subsequent car chase. Lakewood Middle School, which is almost directly West of the location, was on lockdown for a short time after the incident. Brian Hill/bhill@dailyherald.com
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