Tragedy

Philmore Willkins was the father of an ACE TECH freshman student. He showed up to one parent teacher conference and seemed very concerned and involved


The brother of a 49-year-old man who was holed up in a South Side motel with a gun said he asked to try to talk him out of possibly taking his life. But police negotiators refused, and the man was shot and killed by officers early Friday morning. Beat officers were dispatched to the Lake Motel, in the 9100 block of Stony Island Avenue, about 9:30 p.m. after Philmore Wilkins' wife called to say her husband was threatening to kill himself. A hotel clerk said Wilkins pointed a small handgun at her when she unlocked his second-floor room for police.

Officers with the Hostage and Barricade Team were sent to the motel, said Ilana Rosenzweig, chief of the Independent Police Review Authority. Police evacuated the two-story building about 10:30 p.m., said Tabitha Williams, 25, a guest.

Two hours later, three officers opened fire on Wilkins, Rosenzweig said.

He was pronounced dead at 1:18 a.m. Friday in Stroger Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Barry Wilkins said the coroner told his family that his brother's body had 13 bullet holes.

Wilkins thinks tactical officers used excessive force and is upset that two negotiators refused his request to try and talk his brother down.

"I said, 'Maybe I can talk him out of there,'" he said. "They told me just to sit in the car."

Philmore Wilkins, who lived near the motel and had no criminal history in Cook County, was taking anti-depression medication but had never threatened to kill himself, his brother said. He had been a supervisor at a halfway house for about eight years, Wilkins said. He loved table tennis, bowling and tennis, and had two children, a boy, 16, and girl, 22.

The room where Wilkins stayed was visible through a broken window Friday.

There were what looked like two bullet holes in a mirror over where the headboard would have been.