Two days after a Riverdale police officer was killed with his own pistol, questions continued to roil over how the leniency afforded a suspect led to the detective’s murder.
As Detective William “Wally” Rolniak’s family struggled Friday to understand what happened, experts in police policy and procedure said it is essential for officers to have the freedom to treat each case independently, even if that can sometimes lead to tragic results.
“Discretion is something that police officers have by law, and most policies allow officers to practice that discretion. Any [police officer] can cite incidents in which we practiced discretion in a way we should not have, and the results may be tragic,” said Tom Dempsey, director of the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rolniak, 39, began his career at the U. of I. training institute, where he was an excellent student with solid marks, Dempsey said.
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His career ended suddenly and violently Wednesday night when Adrian Humes, a man under arrest for kidnapping and attempted murder, disarmed Rolniak at the police station, led him outside and shot him. Humes, 27, was killed moments later by Riverdale officers after he raised the pistol at them, police said.
Because Humes was cooperating with officers and the Cook County assistant state’s attorney who were questioning him, Rolniak chose not to handcuff him while walking him from the interview room to a holding cell.
The detective was not violating department policy when he escorted Humes without handcuffs from the interview room, Police Chief David Shilling has said.
But, as they arranged for the slain officer’s funeral, members of Rolniak’s family said Friday they still had a lot of unanswered questions about the incident, including what the department policy is on cuffing and what exactly occurred between the interviewing room and Rolniak’s death. They also questioned whether any video cameras captured what happened.