Just after dawn on October 4, 2021, in a second-floor apartment on the 7700 block of South Carpenter Street in Chicago's Gresham neighborhood, Michael A. Craig,a 61-year-old Black male, called 911 and pleaded for help, saying his wife had a knife pressed to his throat.
In the same breath, Micheal told his young son to open the door for the police, while a neighbor, alerted by the child, also called for assistance.
The sequence that followed was preserved in recordings and later
public records: a domestic-violence victim asking for officers, a door left ajar, a frightened child waiting on the sidewalk, and an apartment where a 61-year-old Black male lay in bed saying he could not move without risking being killed.
Within moments of arriving, the first officer crossed the threshold with a Taser in one hand and his gun in the other; almost immediately, he fired, striking the 61-year-old Micheal A. Craig, even as the Taser discharged.
Micheal collapsed in the narrow hallway and bathroom, the chaos of the domestic dispute overtaken by the crack of the shot, the smell of the discharged Taser, and the stunned silence that followed.
Body-worn camera files and investigative summaries later fixed the split-second pace of those decisions and the cramped geometry of the encounter that left 61-year-old Micheal A Craig mortally wounded inside his own home.
Authorities identified the 61-year-old Black male as Michael A. Craig and confirmed he died from multiple gunshot wounds.
The scene remained under the glare of squad lights as investigators documented the apartment and gathered the recordings and statements that would feed into the oversight process—an archive that would, in time, be released alongside the official case file.
In the public record, 61-year-old Micheal's morning is anchored to Gresham, to Carpenter Street, and to the call he made seeking protection.
In the aftermath, two parallel threads emerged on suspects and arrests.
On the domestic-violence side, police records show that the wife—identified in court filings as Tiffany Willis, was later charged with aggravated battery on February 8, 2022, for stabbing the 61-year-old Black male before officers arrived.
On the police-use-of-force side, the officer who fired the shots was identified in news reports as Officer Alberto Covarrubias; oversight investigators recommended in January 2024 that the officer be fired, and city officials later approved an $8.75 million settlement to the children of the 61-year-old Black male.
As of those public reports, the disciplinary actions and civil settlement moved forward while no criminal charges against the officer were announced in connection with the death of the 61-year-old Black male.
What remains is a stark narrative told through 911 audio, body-camera logs, and council agendas: Michael A. Craig, a 61-year-old Black male, called for help during a domestic assault and was shot to death in his own doorway moments after officers arrived.
The apartment, the child at the door, the neighbor's corroborating call, and the later court and city records all trace the same line, from a plea for protection to a loss that rippled through a family and a city, even as one arrest for the stabbing and an administrative push for accountability marked the official response to the killing of a 61-year-old Black male.
