Joliet man charged with recklessly firing gun during domestic battery incident

A Joliet man has been charged with recklessly firing a gun during an incident where he allegedly grabbed a woman’s neck, court records show.

Alastair Williams, 50, faces charges of reckless discharge of a firearm, domestic battery and aggravated domestic battery.

But the most serious charges against Williams include possession of a firearm by a repeat felony offender, a class X felony that is punishable by 6 to 30 years in prison.

At the scene of the incident, Joliet police officers recovered four .45-caliber handguns and an extended weapon magazine loaded with nine live .40-caliber rounds, according to a court filing from prosecutors.

At 1:22 a.m. Wednesday, officers were sent to a residence in the 500 block of Third Avenue in response to a 911 call from a woman who said someone shot at her phone and tried to choke her, according to prosecutors.

The woman repeated the statement again and asked what was taking so long for officers to arrive, prosecutors said.

When officers arrived, the woman made the same statement about Williams yet again, prosecutors said.

But during the investigation of the shooting, the woman became “irate” and “recanted and changed her story multiple times” and told officers Williams cannot go to jail, prosecutors said.

Officers found a spent bullet casing on the porch of the residence, a bullet hole and bullet fragment in the kitchen floor, and a bullet hole in the middle of a cellphone screen, prosecutors said.

Officers found other evidence of gunfire damage at the residence, prosecutors said.

Williams allegedly refused to submit to gunshot residue testing but the a gunshot residue kit was completed, prosecutors said.