CHICAGO (CBS) – DuPage County prosecutors will not file criminal charges against the Carol Stream police officers involved in the fatal police shooting of Isaac Goodlow III at his apartment last February.
DuPage County District Attorney Robert Berlin announced Wednesday that he will not file charges against Officer Daniel Pfingston, or the other officers involved in the shooting. This after months of research.
Police shot Goodlow, 30, in his bedroom Feb. 3 at the Villagebrook Apartments at 260 E. St. Charles Road after he responded to a reported domestic violence incident. They responded to that alleged incident when they entered the one-bedroom apartment.
Carol Stream Police released body camera footage of the shooting by all six officers who entered the apartment after speaking with the alleged domestic violence victim. She said she was injured in a physical fight with Goodlow.
Goodlow was shot immediately in his bedroom after police opened the door, including once in the coffin. He died in a nearby hospital. Carol Stream police said the situation was “tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving,” leading to the shooting.
The village of Carol Stream said in a statement Wednesday that Goodlow’s death “is a tragedy that has caused great pain for his family and in our community.”
The village also said that Pfingston was no longer employed by the village as of May 2, but did not say why.
Just weeks after the shooting, Goodlow’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit to Carol Stream police, claiming officers knew his girlfriend was not in the apartment when they arrived on the scene. They also alleged that police were in the building for more than 50 minutes without contacting Goodlow before raiding his apartment without justification. His family had also said Goodlow was unarmed when he was shot.
In an interview with CBS 2, members of Goodlow’s family also claimed that when police released the body camera footage of the shooting, part of the video was missing. They said they saw the alleged missing part when they were shown the footage privately before it was publicly released.
Berlin appeared to address this accusation in his announcement on Wednesday. He said the telecommunications company Motorola Solutions, Inc. at the request of Goodlow’s family, conducted an audit of the body camera video files, verifying that “the body-worn camera files had not been altered or altered in any way.”
