VIDEO: Morris Cop Kills Alivia Schwab After She Won't Drop Her Knife

MORRIS, IL — Less than one month after Grundy County State's Attorney Russell Baker issued a three-page report finding that Morris Police Officer Nick Pampinella was justified in his use of deadly force, authorities have released all the body-camera videos surrounding Pampinella's deadly encounter with 40-year-old Morris resident Alivia Schwab on Sept. 29.

The two officers at the center of the deadly confrontation that ended Schwab's life were Pampinella, who has been a Morris police officer for over three years, and fellow officer Casie Price, who has been a Morris police officer since the spring of 2022.

Morris police have said their officers were called to the 1800 block of Anne Lane just before 11 a.m. for a report of a suicidal person.

According to the body camera videos that the Morris Police Department released late Friday afternoon, Pampinella can be heard taking charge of the incident. Even though he told officer Price to prepare to deploy her Taser at the 40-year-old Morris woman, Price does not do so as Schwab continues to slowly walk from her apartment, past the sidewalk and into the paved parking lot, toward Officer Pampinella, who is backpedaling and ordering Schwab to drop her 9-inch-long chef's knife. Instead, Schwab keeps walking closer to him, gripping the knife tightly in her left hand as she remained on the phone with a crisis hotline.

You can watch the entire video, from Pampinella's body camera vantage point, at the bottom of this article.

Here are some of the key moments:

At the 1:28 mark, Pampinella sees Schwab emerge from her apartment, on the phone and with the knife in her hand. Shortly after their arrival, Pampinella advises Officer Price "you go non-lethal."

Meanwhile, Schwab keeps slowly walking at him and does not say anything.

"Hi, miss. Miss, drop the knife, drop the knife," Pampinella commands. "Drop, stop coming towards me! Stop coming towards me!"

At the 1:37 mark, Pampinella yells, "Stop where you are, miss. Stop where you are!

"Drop the knife!" Pampinella screams. "Drop the knife. Drop the knife, miss.

"Stop it, stop it, or you're going to get shot."

At 1:43, Pampinella tells Officer Price to deploy her Taser.

"Casie, tase her," he yells.

As Officer Price continues to stand there, she does not deploy her Taser.

At 1:47, as Schwab continues to encroach upon him, Pampinella opens fire, shooting Schwab in the head and firing a total of four rounds.

Schwab suffered three gunshot wounds.

About a minute later, as other Morris police arrive on the scene, Pampinella tells one of them, "She started running at me with a f****** knife, man."

According to his LinkedIn profile, Pampinella is the K-9 officer for Morris police, a 2019 graduate of Western Illinois University. He also worked for eight months in 2019-2010 at Rantoul's Police Department before joining the Morris police force in March 2020.

After college, he also served as an intern at the Sandwich Police Department. Pampinella also grew up and graduated from high school in nearby Dwight. Grundy County's news radio station did a feature story on him when Pampinella joined the Morris police nearly four years ago.

"With regard to the events of September 29, 2023, I have reviewed the evidence gathered in the preliminary investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police and am prepared to release a preliminary opinion that Alivia L. Schwab was in a psychotic suicidal state of mind while armed with a 9-inch chef's knife and aggressively attacked police ignoring all commands to stop and drop the weapon," Grundy County State's Attorney Baker declared in his report issued in November.

According to Baker's report, "Officer Pampinella's actions of responding to a 911 call of a suicidal woman armed with a knife, as well as his use of deadly force regarding firing his weapon in the direction of Alivia L. Schwab, were legally justifiable given the totality of the circumstances."

In his findings, State's Attorney Baker pointed out how "Officer Pampinella reasonably believed his life was in danger as Alivia L. Schwab quickened her advance on him while branching a 9-inch chef's knife and ignoring all lawful commands, ultimately narrowing her distance from the officer to 8 to 10 feet when he discharged his weapon."

Related Joliet Patch coverage of Alivia Schwab's Death

Woman Killed By Morris Police Identified, GoFundMe Set Up

Woman Killed By Morris Officer After Calling Crisis Hotline: Coroner