Two Chicago police officers shot 58-year-old Timothy Glaze 16 times on Jan. 3 as he walked toward them carrying a knife, according to the Little Village man’s autopsy conducted by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office and obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Glaze suffered wounds in his chest, abdomen, torso, thighs, buttock and arms, according to the autopsy. Alcohol and cocaine were identified in Glaze’s system at the time of his death, according to the autopsy and a toxicology report.
“He didn’t deserve 16 shots,” said Charlotta Pritchett, Glaze’s partner of seven years. “I can’t find any justification in that.”
Pritchett told WTTW News she regrets calling 911 in the early morning hours of Jan. 3 after becoming alarmed that Glaze, who she said was suffering from three different kinds of cancer, was carrying around a knife and refusing her requests to leave her apartment.
“Why didn’t they use a Taser on him?” Pritchett asked. Glaze’s autopsy showed the 6-foot, 1-inch man weighed 137 pounds at the time of his death.
Pritchett called 911 twice just after 2 a.m. Jan. 3, according to recordings released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
“I really regret that,” Pritchett said. “I thought they would help me, not murder him.”
Pritchett said she had an order of protection against Glaze that was in effect at the time of his death but nevertheless chose to celebrate the New Year’s holiday and her birthday with him. Glaze was convicted in 2006 of domestic battery and in 2014 of trespassing at a North Side grocery store, according to court records.
Pritchett told 911 dispatchers that she and Glaze had a fight and that he would not put down the knife he had been carrying around.
Concerned by the way Glaze was acting, Pritchett told WTTW News she sought refuge in the corner of the bedroom and picked up a screwdriver.
“He won’t let me out of my room,” Pritchett told the dispatcher. “He got a knife in his hand.”
It took officers just five minutes to arrive at the Albany Terrace Apartments, a building for seniors managed by the Chicago Housing Authority in the 3000 block of West 21st Place, to respond to Pritchett’s calls for help, records show.
Before the officers arrived, Pritchett left the apartment and sought refuge with a neighbor.
Glaze’s encounter with the two officers, which was captured on their body-worn cameras, began as one knocks on the door of the sixth-floor apartment, which swings open.
The officer calls out “Chicago police,” according to the recording.
The video captures Glaze calling out “Chicago police” before he is visible to the officers. Seconds later he comes around a corner toward the door, according to the video.
“What’s going on,” an officer says.
“Nothing,” Glaze says, as he swings one arm around his back, shifting the knife he is carrying from his left hand to his right hand.
As the officers back away from Glaze, he emerges through the apartment door and raises the knife, according to the video. Seconds later, both officers open fire, hitting him 16 times and grazing him once, records show.
After Glaze hits the floor, officers tell him to stop moving and handcuff him before calling for an ambulance, according to the video.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, is probing the shooting, and has yet to determine whether the actions of the two officers were justified. Both officers have returned to patrol after spending 30 days assigned to administrative duties, as required by department policy after a fatal shooting, according to a department spokesperson.
Pritchett said Glaze’s death had been “very traumatic.”
“Every single aspect of my life has been upended,” said Pritchett, who still lives in the apartment just steps from where Glaze was killed and is struggling to pay her bills after an online fundraiser stalled.