(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago police shot and wounded a man who they say pointed a gun at officers inside a West Side police station Wednesday afternoon.
Emergency crews responded to the Ogden District station at 3315 W. Ogden Ave. around 12:50 p.m., according to the Chicago Fire Department.
The man was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with injuries not thought to be life-threatening, according to Chicago police spokesman Tom Ahern.
During a news conference later Wednesday, Police Supt. David Brown said the man was “mumbling and ranting” as he walked into the building’s lobby holding a gun wrapped in a plastic bag.
“One of the officers immediately sees what appears to be a barrel of a gun protruding from the wrapped plastic bag that the offender is holding in his hand,” Brown told reporters at police headquarters, noting that officers told him to drop the weapon.
“The offender shouts and rants anti-police sentiment and then begins pointing the gun at the officers that are working the front desk,” Brown added.
As many as three officers opened fire, according to preliminary information provided by Brown. The man was struck at least once, “we believe in the shoulder,” Brown said.
It’s unclear whether the gun was loaded and investigators haven’t yet identified the suspect, who Brown said hasn’t been “very cooperative.”
Brown said it didn’t appear the suspect was trying to turn the gun over to police.
No officers were hurt, Brown said.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates police shootings, responded to the scene Wednesday afternoon.
The shooting comes just over a week after a man was shot when he allegedly broke into another Chicago police facility on the West Side, grabbed unloaded guns from a table during a training session and aimed at officers.
Donald Patrick, 47, of Waukegan, was charged with felony counts of burglary and aggravated battery of a peace officer in connection with the bizarre incident Sept. 26 at the Homan Square compound, 3340 W. Fillmore St.
During a court hearing Sept. 28, prosecutors said Patrick sought to recover property, though he had never been arrested in Chicago and there was nothing there belonging to him.
Brown said there are heightened concerns “about access to our police facilities,” given the shooting at Homan Square, as well as the officers targeted by gunfire and the “anti-police sentiment expressed by this particular offender.”
“We have to balance that with being obviously open to the community to come in, make reports and to come in and engage with our officers,” Brown said. “So, it’s a balance we have to strike, but there’s some things we believe we can do to maybe strengthen some of our security measures.”
“There’s several things we can look at doing,” he said, noting that other police facilities across the country have glass barriers and elevated desks.
“The Homan Square incident happened days ago. This just happened,” he said. “We’re in a process of looking [and] identifying things we can do in the near term and likely there might be some things we’ll do in the long term.”
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2022. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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