Shots fired at police during pursuit, special agent testifies in hearing regarding Knox County deputy death
CAMBRIDGE — Daylon Richardson, the man charged with crashing his car into and killing Knox County Sheriff’s Deputy Nick Weist, pleaded not-guilty during a preliminary hearing in the Henry County courthouse on Monday, May 23.
Circuit Judge Terry Patton ruled there was probable cause to take the charges to trial. Henry County Public Defender Lance Camp, who is representing Richardson, demanded a jury trial and moved to preserve all audio and video from the police officers’ body-cameras and squad cars involved in the incident.
Richardson, 22 of Granite City, has been charged by Henry County State’s Attorney Catherine Runty with two counts of murder, one count of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon and one count of aggravated fleeing and eluding.
Runty called one witness to the stand on Monday’s preliminary hearing, Illinois State Police Special Agent Walt Willis.
Willis recounted that on the morning of April 29, Galesburg Police received a report of a person with a gun at the Circle K gas station on East Main St. in Galesburg. City police located the suspect’s vehicle, a green Taurus, and attempted to make a traffic stop with their lights and sirens activated, but the suspect’s vehicle did not stop.
Willis said that a pursuing Galesburg police officer observed a handgun displayed through the roof of the suspect's vehicle and advised that shots were being fired at police.
Willis said that the Galesburg officer advised that the placement of “stop sticks” were successful at the intersection of the U.S. Route 150 and 150th Avenue and that after the suspect’s Taurus struck through them, the officer immediately observed Deputy Weist was down.
The suspect, later identified as Richardson, ran from the vehicle and was taken into custody. Willis said that a search was done of the vehicle immediately after it was wrecked, turning up a black and silver Smith & Wesson handgun outside the vehicle and three shell casings and a modification to the handgun’s rifle stock found inside the vehicle.
Willis said that a cell phone has also been recovered and searched, revealing pictures of Richardson with what appears to be the weapon found at the scene. Willis affirmed that one of the photos was timestamped at 7:27 a.m. on the morning of the incident.
Following more questions from Runty, Willis affirmed that the pursuit was continuous, that it did not stop and restart. Willis also said that he reviewed Weist’s squad car video and did not see the green Taurus take any “evasive maneuvers" to avoid striking Weist.
Regarding a preliminary autopsy report done on Weist, Willis said the cause of death was multiple blunt-force wounds.
Camp asked Willis if he could name the number of officers who were involved with the investigation and whether they had body or squad car footage.
Willis named two Galesburg police officers who were involved and that he is still in the process of collecting video evidence from at least 11 Illinois State police officers who responded to the scene. Willis confirmed that multiple Illinois State police officers had squad car footage.
Camp waved the formal reading of Richardson’s charges and penalties. Though the dates could change, a jury trial conference is scheduled for June 16, a final pretrial for June 27 and the official jury trial is set to begin July 5.
When walking in and then out of the courtroom, Richardson was flanked by six Henry County Deputy Sheriffs.
This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Defendant pleads not guilty to murder of Knox County deputy
