Approximately 100 people marched through Mundelein Thursday evening calling for justice and protesting the fatal police-involved shooting of an armed woman experiencing a mental health crisis at a Mundelein home.
Mary Alice Love, 37, of Mundelein, was shot multiple times and killed by Mundelein Police Sergeant Christopher Brigano while police were responding to a report that Love was suicidal at her home in the 1100 block of Ashbrook Drive in Mundelein on May 11.
Love’s mother, Jeffry, called 911 and told dispatchers that her daughter had asked her to call the police so they could kill her, according to video and audio released by the Mundelein Police Department on Monday.
The dispatcher assured the woman that help was on the way as she told him she was worried that officers would kill her granddaughter.
Love’s sister, who was not at the scene, also called 911 and told dispatchers she was concerned that Love was home alone with her sister and that the Lake County Crisis Center had been contacted by the family.
[VIDEO: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED]
Officers arrived and encountered Love’s mother, Jeffry, at the front door.
Officers were seen attempting to get her to exit away from the home for her safety, but she refused and asked the officers to come inside, the video showed. Love was sitting on the back patio of the house at that time.
Officers walked through the house with Jeffry towards the back patio door, and officers reported Love was armed on the patio with a knife.
Officers tried to get Jeffry, who was standing at the back door next to the officers, away from the door to safety, the video showed.
Two officers attempted to physically guide the mother away from the door, and she appeared to fall over.
Love got up from a chair on the patio and walked toward the rear sliding glass door while holding the knives.
Love began yelling at the officers and opened the door before Brigano fired four times at her, causing her to fall and drop the knives on the back patio.
Officers immediately summoned firefighter/paramedics, who were already staging nearby until the scene was deemed safe.
Love was rushed to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where she was pronounced dead.
Around 80-100 people, including family members and relatives of Love, began a scheduled protest shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday in front of the Mundelein Village Hall, 300 Plaza Circle.
Several speakers spent around an hour addressing the crowd, calling for transparency and accountability.
A significant portion of the protesters made signs like “Help before harm,” “Her life mattered,” “Mental healthcare not bullets,” “Justice 4 Mary Alice,” and “Crisis does not equal threat.”
“What we asked for was nine demands from the police department and the mayor,” Attorney Kevin W. O’Connor of the O’Connor Law Firm, who is representing the Love family, told the crowd.
The nine demands included immediately terminating Brigano, suspending two other officers, immediately releasing all body-worn camera footage and dispatch recordings, having the Illinois State Police and U.S. Department of Justice conduct an independent investigation, retracting and correcting alleged false statements, publicly apologizing to Love’s family, identifying all officers involved and holding a community accountability meeting.
“Everyone thinks, ‘well, they met your demands, they released a video, they released some 911 tapes,’ but what we got was what looked like a video presentation out of something like a movie,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor said that the Mundelein Police Department did not release all of the body-worn camera video and 911 call audio, and instead released an edited nine-minute version that omitted parts of the video and audio and was narrated by Mundelein Police Chief Jason Seeley.
“They turned over what they thought was their best foot forward. Well, that best foot forward failed miserably,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor added that Sergeant Brigano, an 18-year veteran of the Mundelein Police Department, “failed on pretty much every level” despite being trained in crisis intervention training (CIT).
“It was a series of tactical errors from the start,” O’Connor said, adding that police improperly addressed the situation and instead escalated it.
O’Connor said Love got up from the chair and was asking the police what they were doing to her mother when she was shot.
O’Connor added that officers failed to establish verbal communication with Love and did give her an opportunity to comply.
“And what could they have done? Back up. Back up and wait for the crisis intervention people to come,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor also said that police tried to blame Jeffry for the incident “to throw salt on the wound.”
“This man [Brigano] should be fired, there is no question. He should be fired.”
“If this is your leader, if this is your sergeant training these other officers, get that poison out of that department. He’s only going to teach them bad things.”
O’Connor further criticized officers’ handling of the incident immediately following the shooting, including where an officer allegedly refused to let a family member ride in the ambulance with Jeffry and an officer who allegedly locked down Advocate Condell Medical Center and refused to let the family see and comfort the mother.
“They’re trying to find an excuse for their conduct that they couldn’t find,” O’Connor said.
Jeffry was seen crying during the speeches.
Johnny Love, the father of Alice Love, also called for accountability and consequences against Brigano.
Other speakers included religious and community activists like Ralph Peterson Jr., Pastor Eugene Roberson, Christopher “Brotha” Blanks, Kimberly Handy Jones, Bishop Tavis L. Grant II and Reverend Wallace “Gator” Bradley.
The niece of Mundelein Mayor Robin Meier also unexpectedly addressed the crowd and Love’s family, after O’Connor criticized the fact that Police Chief Seeley and Meier were not directly present at the protest.
The niece apologized to Love’s family for Meier’s absence.
“This is not okay, and I’m sorry that my aunt isn’t here,” she said.
“I never thought that my family would be somebody that wouldn’t show up to something like this, and I’m so sad and I’m so, so, so sorry. I watched the video, and I feel responsible because she’s not here and she should be, she should be here. It’s not okay,” the niece said while crying.
At 6:30 p.m., the crowd began marching to the Mundelein Police Department.
Officers provided temporary traffic control as the crowd marched through East Hammond Street, North Seymour Avenue, East Division Street and Route 45 before ending at the internet exchange parking lot on the north side of the police station.
The crowd held a prayer before the protest ended at around 7 p.m.
Police monitored the protest and the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS) Mobile Field Force was on standby at the Mundelein Public Works Department at 801 Allanson Road.
NIPAS Mobile Field Force is a specialized crowd control team consisting of police departments throughout the region.
The protest remained peaceful, and there were no incidents reported.
Lake & McHenry County Scanner conducted an interview with O’Connor after the protest ended.
O’Connor said police are not releasing key details leading up to and during the incident, like the family calling for Lake County Health Department crisis counselors and other angles and parts of officers’ body-worn camera footage.
“We appeared in front of the city council last Monday. We asked them, we started making demands, talking with them. Not one member of the council, the police chief was there, not one spoke to say one word related to this case when they had the opportunity to address the family and address some people from the community,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor was also skeptical about whether the Lake County Major Crime Task Force would conduct a thorough and fully transparent investigation.
“I’ve been doing civil rights cases in Lake County for now over 16 years. The Lake County [Major Crime] Task Force has never found anything wrong with the officer in any of my cases, yet there were multiple millions of dollars of settlements and judgments that have occurred.”
“These groups of people are made up of people from these towns that all know them,” O’Connor said, citing the task force’s handling of the 2015 suicide of Fox Lake Police Lieutenant Joseph Gliniewicz.
The family will continue to appear at the village’s bi-weekly board of trustees meetings, including on Monday evening, where the family will distribute blue ribbons to the community in remembrance of Love.
Police Chief Seeley was seen exiting the village hall at around 7:30 p.m. and quickly entering the passenger seat of a police squad car before being driven away.
Seeley declined to comment on the protest.
The shooting remains under investigation by the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.