2 men charged with manslaughter after Illinois officer dies in fall
ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Ill. — Two men who were running from a Washington Park auxiliary policeman when he fell off the Poplar Street Bridge on Saturday have been charged with manslaughter in his death.
St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly on Tuesday morning identified the suspects as Valention Miller and Chaun’tuan Gillespie, both 19 and from East St. Louis.
Miller faces three charges: involuntary manslaughter, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, and aggravated fleeing and eluding a police officer. His bail was set at $40,000. Gillespie was charged with involuntary manslaughter and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. His bail was $30,000.
Kelly said the weapon they carried in the fleeing SUV was a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol.
They are charged in the death of Ricardo Davis, 44, who was an auxiliary police officer in Washington Park. He fell about 50 feet Saturday while chasing Miller and Gillespie and was pronounced dead later at a hospital, authorities say.
Police said Davis jumped over a concrete barrier without realizing there was a gap to the drop below.
Davis had “a lot of friends and family in the area and in law enforcement, and obviously all are very upset at his loss of life,” Kelly said.
News of the charges came as about 50 police cars from throughout the area escorted a hearse carrying Davis’ body from the St. Louis medical examiner’s office to a funeral home in East St. Louis.
“It was an amazing show of support from the men in blue,” said Christopher Davis, one of two brothers of Ricardo Davis who work for the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department. “It just shows that when you do this job and you fall, your fellow officers will come pick you up. They’re there to show their support that we are all as one.”
Davis said his mother, Shirley Davis, 74, was moved to tears when she pulled up and saw the number of officers there to pay tribute to her son.
A father of six, Davis wasn’t paid for his position as an auxiliary officer. The role serves as a pipeline to employment as a full Washington Park officer, but he needed to graduate from a police academy first. He was set to begin academy work in two weeks.
On Saturday, police tried to stop an SUV with the two men inside about 5 p.m. The vehicle didn’t pull over. The men led police on a chase to westbound Interstate 64, where the vehicle sideswiped several cars before crashing on the Poplar Street Bridge, said Illinois State Trooper Calvin Dye Jr.
The suspects got out and ran. Davis was among several officers running after them. Other officers involved in the chase said Davis had jumped over other concrete barriers safely during the pursuit, Dye said. But the third barrier he attempted to clear led to a gap and his fatal fall.