Teen struggles after ’19 police shooting inside music school
Nearly a year after being shot, teen remains optimistic
Rylan Wilder remembers how to press down on the guitar strings, but the 16year-old’s left hand can’t keep up.
It’s been nearly a year since a Des Plaines police officer, chasing a bank robbery suspect, fired a rifle round through Rylan’s arm as the teen was running for cover inside a music school.
“This young man was given a gift,” said Timothy Cavanagh, the family’s attorney who this week released the first video images from inside the school on that November day. “To have that ripped away where he’s had nothing to do with this — he didn’t do anything wrong, no fault of his own — it’s just heartbreaking.”
In the security camera footage, Rylan is seen tidying up a room full of keyboards when flashing police lights fill the windows of UpBeat Music and Arts on the Northwest Side. The suspect bursts through the front door and rushes past Rylan.
An officer runs through the door and yells, “Drop it,” as Rylan tries to get out of his way. The officer fires a semi-automatic rifle with Rylan still between him and the suspect. Rylan escapes from the room through a side door as the officer keeps firing, killing the suspect, Christopher Willis.
The officer fires about a dozen rounds.
Willis and a second man had robbed a Bank of America branch in Des Plaines hours earlier on Nov. 19. Afterward, Willis carjacked a couple and led officers on a high-speed chase on the Kennedy Expressway that ended at the music school in the 4300 block of West
Wilder
Irving Park Road shortly before 7 p.m., Chicago police have said.
Willis shot a Chicago police officer before running into the school, where Rylan was interning. He was a sophomore at Lane Tech College Prep, and lead guitarist and singer for the rock band Monarchy Over Monday.
Since then, Rylan had about 14 surgeries and is still in pain as he works through physical therapy. But the teen remains optimistic.
“He’s a pretty amazing young man,” Cavanagh said. “No doubt he’s had some very, very tough times, but he’s resilient and he’s hopeful. And he’s worked incredibly, incredibly hard.”
In releasing the video, Cavanagh said the family has questions about the actions of the officer.
“They want some answers to why Des Plaines was in the city of Chicago and this pursuit, they want to know why this officer was using an AR-15 — a personal weapon, a weapon of war,” Cavanagh said. “This is not a normal weapon. This ripped his arm apart.”
Rylan’s family later filed a lawsuit against Willis’ alleged accomplice, Maurice Murphy. In an amended complaint filed in August, the lawsuit names the officer who shot Rylan and the city of Des Plaines.
Cavanagh said he obtained a copy of Des Plaines police’s pursuit policy that states: “If two units from the other agency are actively involved in the pursuit, the officers will not engage in the pursuit unless directed to do so by a supervisor.”
Cavanagh said his reading of the policy means the suburban police officer should never have entered the school.
Des Plaines police Chief William Kushner did not respond to questions about the pursuit policy or about the officer carrying his own rifle, but said a third-party investigation found the officer complied with the department’s policies.
He did not respond to a question about who conducted the independent review. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office declined to comment Friday, citing an ongoing investigation.
“While it is certainly a tragedy that Mr. Wilder was injured during the commission of this violent crime spree, the DPPD’s officer’s actions were necessary, proper and likely saved lives,” Kushner wrote in a statement. “It is unfortunate that Christopher Willis, an armed bank robber, put Mr. Wilder and several other innocent bystanders in harm’s way.”
Kushner added that his department “empathizes with Mr. Wilder, his family and friends and wishes him a full recovery with the hopes that he and his family can soon put this incident behind them.”
But Cavanagh said those sentiments are not enough.
“We’ll engage in the discovery in the case and get our own answers,” Cavanagh said. “That’s a selfserving (statement). Of course the police are going to say their actions were warranted. We’ve seen hundreds of situations where they claim their actions were warranted and you dig deep and you find out that’s just not the case.”