James J. Riordan had been with the Chicago Police Department for 33 years. The 57-year-old had survived clashes with anti-war protestors during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. A protestor had struck him with a large sign, sending him to the hospital. The following year, he testified at the trial of the “Chicago Seven.”

On June 6, 1981, at Marina City, Riordan became the highest-ranking Chicago police officer killed in action.

It was a Saturday night. Riordan had been working seven days a week on traffic management plans. On his way home, at about 9 p.m., he stopped for dinner at the Captain’s Table restaurant and piano bar on the lower level of Marina City. Riordan had an apartment at Marina City, in addition to a home on the north side of Chicago. According to restaurant owner Nick Romas, Riordan often ate at the restaurant after working late.

He sat near the bar, which was lined with fish nets, with Martin and Alice O’Brien, who lived at Marina City. Also with them was 45-year-old Doris Radcliffe, a vice president of Canteen Corporation, who had been seeing Riordan socially for nine months. Radcliffe was divorced. Riordan was married and had nine children.

35-year-old Leon Washington, a former undercover police officer in Davenport, Iowa, and owner of a management recruiting firm in the Loop, had been at the bar for about five hours. He was 6’2” tall, weighed 240 pounds, was wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans, windbreaker, and a straw cowboy hat, a common look in the early 1980s, influenced by the film Urban Cowboy.

He also had a hunter’s knife strapped to his belt and in a shoulder bag he had a Walther PPK .380 semiautomatic pistol. Easy to conceal, the Walther was issued to German military police during World War II. Adolph Hitler had one. So did fictional secret agent James Bond.

Witnesses say Washington was being loud and annoying, trying to speak with patrons at the bar but being rebuffed. The bartender tried to order him out.

Leon Washington

Riordan had been there for less than ten minutes. He ordered a round of drinks for his group. Washington came over, stood between Martin O’Brien and Doris Radcliffe, and said he would not leave until Martin bought him a drink. Alice O’Brien told her husband not to do it.

Washington took out his gun and pointed it at Alice’s head. With the safety apparently on and no ammunition in the chamber, he clicked the trigger three times.

The bartender, Psyche Williams, grabbed the phone and dialed 911 but the phone would ring unanswered for the next crucial minute.

Riordan grabbed the man’s arm and pointed the gun up in the air. He and Martin struggled with Washington and moved him away from the bar. Alice hit Washington with her purse. Riordan turned to her and Martin and said that he would handle it.

Riordan did not take the gun from Washington. No one knew why. No one knew if Riordan identified himself as a police officer, an important point because doing so would have qualified the case for the death penalty. He let the man go, and Washington went into a coat check room and emerged moments later with the gun drawn. Prosecutors believed that while Washington was in the coat room, he put an eighth bullet in the gun, and manually advanced a live round into the chamber.

“He's still here,” Alice told Riordan. “He’s got a gun in his hand.”

Riordan, who was 5’11” tall, weighed 170 pounds and was unarmed, put his hand on Washington’s left shoulder and escorted him out of the bar and down a hallway that separated the bar from the coffee shop. After a few steps, Washington walked backward, holding the gun.

Firing four times, he shot Riordan at close range, once in the chest and twice in the neck. Riordan fell backwards across a shallow decorative fountain in the hallway. He lay conscious on the red and white tiled floor, but bleeding heavily.

Doris saw the flash of the gun and saw Riordan fall. She ran screaming back into the bar, then went to Riordan and held his head out of the water.

By this time, a 911 operator finally answered. The bartender, who had ducked behind the bar when she heard the gunshots, told the operator, “A police officer has been shot – it’s Riordan!”

Washington walked around inside the hallway. 31-year-old Michael Schramm, a real estate investment analyst who had been a military police officer in the Army, told Washington to drop the gun. Washington replied, “Don’t worry, man. I’m cool.”

Schramm told him again to drop the gun, which he did, and stand against a wall. Schramm kicked the gun away. Washington said, “I’m sorry” and, about Riordan, “he was just there.”

When police arrived, responding to a report of “shots fired” shortly before 9:30 p.m., Washington did not resist arrest.

This Chicago Tribune graphic shows the scene of the 1981 shooting at Marina City Restaurant. Riordan and his group were sitting above and to the right of the oval bar on the left side of the graphic. He escorted Washington to the hallway in the lower left corner, was shot by Washington, and fell into the shallow pool.

Riordan was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition. Mayor Byrne and other top-ranking city officials, including Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, rushed to the hospital. Byrne whispered to Riordan before he went into surgery, saying, “I love you, Jim. Just let them help you.”

After losing 18 pints of blood and undergoing 90 minutes of surgery, Riordan was pronounced dead just before midnight. The bullets had caused irreparable damage to major arteries.

The next day, Washington was charged with murder. He was indicted on Monday by a grand jury and held without bail.

Testifying in his defense, Washington offered a decidedly different version of events, claiming he was trying to leave the bar when Riordan ran up and accosted him. “He kept pushing me,” he said. He did not know Riordan was a police officer and, having recently broken bones in his left hand, felt threatened by him.

“As I was trying to walk away,” he told the jury, “someone walked up and grabbed me and started pushing me away. He grabbed me from behind the right side and by the neck.”

He denied holding a gun at Alice O’Brien's head and said Alice had been verbally abusive to him earlier in the evening. When he shot Riordan, he says he was just trying to fire a warning shot. He then instinctively fired three more times.

On Friday, October 30, 1981, after a four-day trial, Leon Washington was found guilty of murder by a jury which deliberated for five hours. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, five years less than the maximum sentence.

Riordan’s widow filed a $30 million lawsuit against Washington, the company that sold him the gun, and Marina City Restaurant.

Security at Marina City slightly less than heroic

Michael Schramm, the civilian who got Washington to drop his weapon, happened to be on the telephone with a 911 operator about an unrelated matter. He put down the phone to track down a security officer who was near a vestibule. When he heard the gunshots, Schramm told the security officer – who worked for Andy Frain Services (a Chicago provider of security services) – to call the police. The officer instead called his supervisors. Schramm then told the security officer that a 911 operator was on the line at the nearby pay phone.

But as they were talking, the security officer, over Schramm’s shoulder, saw Washington approach. The officer slammed shut the door of the vestibule and locked himself inside.

Through all of this, the second 911 operator was still on the line, and audio of the shooting was recorded.

And this was not the first version of the story that was told to the public, as police tried in vain to conceal the fact that the married Riordan was dating Doris Radcliffe.