Weis: Violence Toward Cops "Extraordinarily Disturbing"

2 officers shot Thursday expected to be OK

By BJ LUTZ

Updated 1:18 PM CST, Tue, Jul 28, 2009

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WMAQ

Two veteran police officers were in "good spirits" and expected to fully recover after both were shot in the legs Thursday afternoon while attempting to serve a narcotics-related warrant on Chicago's Far Southeast Side.

It's the fifth police-involved shooting in the last week, and Police Supt. Jody Weis said it's evidence of a larger pattern of violence targeting police that grows more dangerous every month.

"The level of violence being shown to police officers is extraordinarily disturbing," Weis said. "People are trying to murder police officers left and right, and if you think about it, if they'll do that to a uniformed officer, what will they do to civilians and innocent people on the street?"

The officers shot on Thursday were the second and third officers shot this year. A 27-year-old officer, Alex Valadez, was shot and killed June 1. Two other incidents this week involved someone pointing a weapon at an officer.

Thursday's incident began shortly before 1 p.m. when the officers entered through a back door of a home near 112th Place and State Street and announced they had a warrant.

A person in a rear bedroom fired shots through a closed door at the officers, striking them each in the leg. The officers returned fire, but did not strike anyone.

"He fired through a door, blindly, at people who were yelling, 'Police officers' at that time," Weis said during an afternoon press conference.

Several people were in the home at the time, including a 3-year-old child. The alleged shooter, a 22-year-old, was taken into police custody.

"To put a child in that type of risk is unbelievable to me. And that ignores the fact that they're trying to murder police officers," Weis said.

The officers, a 45-year-old who has been with the department for 15 years and a 34-year-old with the department for nine years, were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in serious condition, but were expected to be fine.

So far this year, there have been 31 incidents in which an officer has fired a weapon, according to the Independent Police Review Authority. Of those, 28 civilians were shot. Nine of them were fatal.