A Des Plaines police officer was justified in killing a man who charged him with a baseball bat during a standoff last year, according to a report from a task force that investigated the incident.
Construction worker Neal Scalia, 41, was fatally shot Nov. 16 outside his home on the 1000 block of Hollywood Avenue in Des Plaines by Officer Dave Kerfman.
Police said Scalia was enraged over a debt owed him by a friend and had threatened to harm himself and his mother. When police arrived, they said Scalia was sitting on his porch with a bat.
Scalia eventually charged Kerfman with the bat raised above his head, police said. Kerfman killed him with a single shot from a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Family members had questioned the need for Kerfman to fire his weapon. But Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Jim Hall of the Public Integrity Task Force said an investigation showed that Kerfman had a reasonable fear for his life and that the shooting was justified.
Des Plaines Police Chief Robert Sturlini, who received the report Monday, said he had sympathy for Scalia’s family but agreed that Kerfman’s actions were justified.
“The officer is sworn to protect the citizen, but he also has a wife; he has a family,” he said. “And he has a right to expect that he can come home.”
Kerfman had been reassigned to desk duty but returned to his regular duties earlier this year.
