After an investigation by Mishawaka and St. Joseph County police, Prosecutor Ken Cotter Thursday announced that South Bend police officers were justified in fatally shooting a man Tuesday at Karl King Tower Apartments.
Cotter said under Indiana law, the four South Bend officers were justified in using deadly force against 55-year-old Christopher Chester. Witnesses had told them Chester had been violent with two women that night, stabbing a woman in her 20s in the hand, and holding a knife to the throat of another woman in her apartment. He had been in a relationship with that woman, who’s in her 70s, but she managed to safely lock herself in the bathroom.
Cotter said police negotiated with the man for about an hour before getting a search warrant. As they then prepared to enter with a set of keys, an officer’s body cam video shows Chester exiting the apartment and charging the officers with a hammer…