JUSTICE GETS ITS SHOT AT POLICEMAN

Mike Royko

Joel Smith is in poor health and he is thinking of retiring to a quiet cabin in Tennessee. But a few years ago he was strong and he liked his job as a cop in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.

One day in 1979, he was informed that a man was firing a gun in front of an apartment complex. The man had quarrelled with his girlfriend and had fired a gun into the air to scare away people who were interfering. Then he dragged her into his apartment.

Smith and his partner hurried there, knocked, and told him to let the girl go. But the man threatened that if they came in, he would blow their rear quarters off. When they kicked the door open, the man shot twice. Smith was hit in the hand and leg. Then the man threw down his gun and surrendered.

He was Kerry Rudman, 33, and no stranger to trouble. At the time of the shooting, he was awaiting trial for robbing a jewelry store in a suburban shopping mall.

Smith spent a week in the hospital and six weeks at home. But by 1981 he had to have further surgery on his hand. And a month later, he suffered a stroke. The doctors said the blood clot could have been the result of the bullet wounds.

His marriage suffered and ended in divorce. That, too, he says was the result of the shooting.

Rudman pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a total of six years in prison for the robbery and the shooting of Smith.

But he served less than half of that. He was out in 27 months. So that amounts to about a year for shooting and possibly disabling a cop, and a year for robbing a jewelry store.

While in prison, Rudman developed a thirst for knowledge and went to the prison library. He read law books, and then filed a federal suit against the policemen. He said they attacked him and that he shot only in self-defence. And they beat him so badly that they broke one of his fingers. This, he said, deprived him of his civil rights, and he asked for $150,000 in damages.

When Smith heard about the law suit, he was outraged at Rudman's gall. So Smith sued Rudman for shooting him.

"It wasn't that I was after money. I just wanted to make sure that he was found guilty again in the civil suit."

A jury agreed with Smith. They later awarded him $35,000 damages from Rudman. But Smith hasn't seen a nickel of the money.

It turned out that Rosemont's insurance company decided that fighting Rudman's civil rights suit wasn't worth the legal expense. So the company offered Rudman a 56,000 settlement. Being no dummy, he quickly accepted. Not many guys shoot a cop and pocket $6,000 for their efforts.

Smith's lawyer went before a federal magistrate who is handling this matter and filed legal papers that would force the insurance company to give the $6,000 to Smith instead of Rudman. That does make a certain amount of sense, since Rudman, the ex-gunman, does owe Smith, the ex-cop, $35,000.

But for some reason this angered the federal magistrate. He griped that Smith's lawyer was just harassing Rudman and his lawyer. So in what seems like an unusual ruling, he told the insurance company to write out a check to him, the magistrate. Then he, the magistrate, could write out a personal check to Rudman, the ex-gunman. And that would settle the affair. The checks could be written at any torment.

When the magistrate, James T. Balog, was asked about this check-writing arrangement, he said he could not discuss it since the case is still pending. But if he goes ahead with it, Rudman will get the money.

And Smith, the disabled cop, will limp away to a cabin in Tennessee, knowing that all he got was the shaft.