Man at center of St. Clair County standoff boasts lengthy, violent criminal history

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - The man police say is responsible for the shooting death of a co-worker and wounding a Dupo police officer had a lengthy criminal history spanning more than 20 years.

Reggie Allen, 40, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his garage Sunday night, more than eight hours after police received a 911 call for shots fired, with a man laying in a yard. According to St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Brad Clossen, the agency called for assistance from neighboring departments, leading to the Dupo officer arriving on the scene first.

Clossen said when the officer saw Allen walking down McBride Avenue, not far from the victim, he got out of his squad car to try to talk to him. When he did so, police said Allen shot the officer in the shoulder. A responding Cahokia Heights police officer soon began rendering aid to the injured officer, who was taken to the hospital.

Investigators said Allen stole the injured officer’s squad car, driving it down the street to his home, where he parked it outside the home’s detached garage and went inside. Over the course of the next several hours, investigators said they were able to determine Allen was responsible for the homicide of Darryl Mantz, 46, along with shooting the officer. They applied for an arrest and search warrant, and SWAT officers entered the home around 9:15 p.m. Sunday night.

Allen was not inside, they said, leading SWAT officers to investigate the garage, where they found Allen dead, along with an AR-15 rifle. It was determined the rifle was used in the shooting of Mantz and with the self-inflicted gunshot wound Allen sustained. Investigators believe it was also used to shoot the Dupo officer.

The officer, whose name is not being released, is 49 years old and has 12 years of law enforcement experience. Dupo Police said the officer is expected to survive but has undergone several surgeries and will need more.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Allen spent two stints in prison in the last 20 years, both of which were brief. The first sentence began on Dec. 8, 2005, before he was paroled on Feb. 1, 2007. Allen was admitted again on March 4, 2016 and then released on parole on Aug. 18, 2017.

The most recent prison sentence stems from an incident in the parking lot of a strip club in East St. Louis in 2009. According to an attorney representing the family of the victim, Anthony Rice, Allen was working as a bouncer at the club when Rice and his brother were denied entry near the club’s closing time. Allen then allegedly threw a brick through the men’s windshield, before retrieving his truck from behind the building and running over Rice in the parking lot, killing him.

Allen told police he feared for his life after someone with Rice grabbed a gun out of their car and fired several shots into the air. He was initially charged with reckless homicide, before pleading guilty to a lesser charge of mob action. The judge sentenced him to one year in prison.

While the case was being litigated, in 2012, Allen was accused of beating a dancer at Miss Kitty’s, a club his family owned. According to court documents, the victim stated Allen forced her off stage and into a bathroom, where he grabbed her by the throat and yelled at her about money. She was eventually thrown outside with little clothing on, suffering several seizures and medical issues in the immediate aftermath of the alleged beating. The woman filed a lawsuit against Allen seeking punitive damages.

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