Mother loved her son, but says Bolingbrook police ‘did what they had to do’ when they shot him

Her son changed years ago, but on Friday it was as if even the man she knew as he struggled with mental illness after returning from war “was gone” when he turned violent, Jessie Hansen said.

Her son, Christopher W. Hansen, 37, was fatally shot by Bolingbrook police after he stabbed a family friend multiple times and appeared ready to strike again.

“He’s still my baby,” Jessie Hansen said, crying at times as she talked about what happened. “I still love him. They did what they had to do. What else can I say?”

But, Jessie said much more as she tried to explain the tragedy that she said erupted without warning Friday afternoon.

Chris had come back after serving more than four years in the Army, during the Iraq War, different than when he left, she said. He was never quite the same again, and Chris eventually was diagnosed with schizophrenia. But as much as he had changed, Chris changed even more, and suddenly on Friday afternoon.

“When we looked at him, it was like he wasn’t there,” she said. “It was like he was gone.”

Chris had been living with his family at the house in the 500 block of Spruce Road the last few years, after they had learned he was homeless and brought him back home. Jessie said he had been doing well. He worked, saw a doctor at a Veterans Affairs clinic regularly, and received treatment and medication for his schizophrenia.

But something changed for the worse Friday.

“We don’t know why,” Jessie said.

The family had locked the doors and called police after Chris pulled the family dog outside and stabbed him.

But another resident of the house, a family friend named Rob, decided to go outside “to have a cigarette,” Jessie said. “We told him not to go out. There’s no way he knew it was that bad.”

She believes Rob, a Navy veteran, thought he could help.

“They’re veterans, and they kind of stick together,” she said. “I think Rob thought he could get him to pop through.”

Instead, Rob, was stabbed repeatedly.

He was stabbed at least nine times, according to Dan Jungles, executive director of the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force that is investigating the police-involved shooting.

Bolingbrook police officers, dispatched to a report of a dog being stabbed to death, learned on the way that a man was being stabbed, too.

“When officers arrived on scene, they observed a male white subject on top of another male, white subject who was covered with blood,” Jungles said Saturday. “The gentleman they shot was holding a knife over the man on the ground. It looked like he was about to come down on the knife.”

Two officers fired their service weapons and hit Hansen at least three times.

Both he and the family friend, who is 46, were taken to hospitals. Chris Hansen died. Rob was reported to be in stable condition.

Police officers applied tourniquets to three of the four limbs of the stabbing victim to stem the bleeding, Jungles said. He will require surgery to repair artery damage but is expected to recover.

The Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force is the agency authorized to investigate police-involved shootings in Will County.

Jungles said the investigation will continue for some time.

Asked what precipitated the stabbing of the dog and the family friend, Jungles said he could give no particular reason.

“I would say it was a mental health incident,” he said.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” said Jessie. “It’s schizophrenia.”

Jessie said her son was a caring man, who just the day before, gave $50 to a family standing on the roadside asking for money. He had not shown signs of turning violent until he suddenly did.

“They need more mental health care, especially for veterans,” Jessie said. “There has to be more for those who need it.”

The front area of their house was so bloodstained that Jessie had prayed for rain. Her prayers were answered when a downpour Saturday morning washed away the blood.

Other prayers she doesn’t think will be answered.

“I do a lot of praying,” Jessie said. “You ask a lot of whys. But you’re never going to know.”