Family, girlfriend of man killed in high-speed chase sue Rock Falls, two officers

MORRISON – The family and girlfriend of a man killed last year during a police chase in Rock Falls is suing the city and the two patrol officers involved in his death.

The pickup Bruce D. O’Neal was driving along U.S. Route 30 on March 29, 2022, was hit head-on by a suspect fleeing from police, the lawsuit states. The chase was going at speeds in excess of 100 mph, according to the suit.

O’Neal, 62, of Rock Falls, died at the scene and his passenger, longtime girlfriend Michele L. “Shelley” Riesselman, 52, also of Rock Falls, was seriously injured.

Nazier T. Pryor, 19, of Chicago, was speeding eastbound and attempting to pass another vehicle when the Mercedes Benz he was driving collided with the pickup, which was westbound in the 1200 block of East Route 30, near Megli Road.

Pryor died that night at a Rockford hospital.

Named in the suit is the city and the two Rock Falls police officers, Rollie A. Elder and Mitchell R. Ottenhausen, who engaged in the chase in separate squad cars, and who violated the RFPD’s policy on high-speed pursuits, the lawsuit states.

The suit was filed March 24 in Whiteside County Court. Most of its 24 counts claim wrongful death through negligence, wrongful death through willful wanton conduct, and compensation due under the terms of the Survival Act.

As is standard in wrongful death cases, it seeks damages in excess of $50,000 plus court costs.

According to a news release at the time of the crash from Rock Falls police Chief Dave Pilgrim:

Sterling Police attempted to stop Pryor’s black Mercedes for a traffic violation – traveling the wrong way on a one-way street – around 4 p.m., but he took off. There was a brief pursuit, during which the Mercedes struck another vehicle in the area of First Avenue and Third Street, then kept going.

The officers lost sight of the vehicle near LeFevre Road and Second Avenue, and that pursuit – which did not exceed the speed limit, Sterling police said – then ended.

At about 4:08 p.m., Elder (who was not named in the release) spotted the Mercedes heading south on 12th Avenue and attempted to make a traffic stop, but Pryor took off at a high rate of speed, and continued east on Route 30 across the Hennepin Canal, with officers following “quite a ways behind,” Pilgrim said.

The Mercedes clipped an eastbound vehicle as Pryor attempted to pass it, about a quarter mile east of Industrial Park Road, then hit O’Neal’s pickup, the release stated.

According to Cook County Court records, Pryor was on probation at the time for unlawful use of a weapon; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced May 11, 2021, for having a loaded gun in a vehicle.

According to the lawsuit:

Elder and Ottenhausen overheard Sterling’s police radio communications regarding the failed traffic stop.

Elder began monitoring traffic coming into Rock Falls from Sterling on 12th Avenue. He spotted the Mercedes, activated his lights and siren, and followed it as it began traveling at a high rate of speed and turned east on 30.

As the Mercedes continued east, Ottenhausen headed south on Seventh Avenue to intercept it, also with his lights and siren on, then followed it east on 30, “thereby joining and advancing the high-speed pursuit of the Mercedes through the busy weekday afternoon streets of Rock Falls,” the lawsuit states.

Even though the Mercedes, which reached speeds “greater than 100 mph,” could be seen veering into the westbound lane to pass vehicles “Elder and Ottenhausen nevertheless continued their high-speed pursuit ...” it states.

The Mercedes was near Megli Road when it attempted to pass the last vehicle before colliding with O’Neal’s truck.

According to the suit, both officers endangered the public by not ending the chase, and by driving at speeds that were unreasonable and unsafe.

They “violated city of Rock Falls Police Department rules, regulations and/or standards applicable to vehicle pursuits,” according to the lawsuit.

Their actions were the proximate cause of O’Neal’s death and Riesselman’s injuries, it states.

Neither the city nor the officers have responded to the complaint.

Elder, 47, a Rock Falls native, came to the city’s police department from Erie, where he was chief of police from July 2018 to Nov. 1, 2021. Before that, he was a Whiteside County sheriff’s deputy.

Ottenhausen, 33, was a police officer in Savanna in Carroll County before he was hired by RFPD on Feb. 4, 2019.

Sterling attorney James Mertes of Mertes & Mertes represents Riesselman and Christina J. O’Neal, Bruce’s daughter-in-law and executor of his estate.

A case management conference is set for July 27.