Off-Duty Cop Charged With Killing Boy on Bike
Terrence Booker struck, killed Friday morning
The boy's bike was thrown under a nearby parked car.
Bail was set at $2 million for a Chicago police officer charged in a drunken driving crash that killed a 13-year-old byciclist, but the brief court hearing started about an hour before it was scheduled, the teen’s angry family said.
“It’s scheduled for 12 and it’s not even 12,” Morris Upton, who identified himself as the grandfather of the boy — Trenton Booker — said about 11:45 a.m. outside the Cook County criminal courts building at 26th and California.
“I’m very angry,” he said.
Asked by reporters whether he thought the officer charged in the case, Richard Bolling, 39, was getting preferential treatment — considering the hearing was held before the dead boy’s family or even the media arrived in the court room, Upton said: “Well, I’m sure.”
A man and woman who identified themselves as Trenton’s parents were walking toward the courthouse building at 26th and California when they learned the hearing was over.
“We had no idea they went at 11 o’clock,” the woman, repeating that “we’re his parents,” but declining to give her name. “We just lost our son,” she said, as she climbed into an awaiting SUV before adding: “Let’s just hope justice is served.”
The officer’s attorney as well as his family members also declined comment as they left the courthouse.
Witnesses saw Bolling at a bar in the vicinity of 55th and Indiana before his car struck Trenton at the intersection of 81st and Ashland around 1:30 a.m. Friday, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's office. He was off-duty at the time.
Patrol officers arrested Bolling a few blocks away when they noticed he was driving the wrong way on a one-way street in the 1900 block of West 82nd Street, authorities said. Inside Bolling's Dodge Charger, which sustained front-end and windshield damage, officers discovered an open bottle of beer, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Bolling, a 17-year department veteran currently serving in a tactical narcotics unit, was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident where a death or injury occurred, driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street and transportation of alcohol, authorities said.
He has been stripped of his police powers.
For now Bolling remains at the Cook County jail and is scheduled to be back court again on Tuesday, according to an assistant state’s attorney.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Chicago
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