Charges are pending against three teenagers in connection with the Wednesday night shooting of a Chicago police officer engaged in what police described as a routine gun investigation.
Nyls Meredith, 35, a six-year veteran of the police force, was shot during a gun battle in the 1300 block of West 112th street.
Investigators say Meredith and his partner were attempting a street stop when three males bolted and at least one of them began firing. The officer was hit in the knee, but according to police Supt. Garry McCarthy, managed to wound one of the alleged offenders, a 15-year-old.
“He’s grateful,” McCarthy said, after visiting Meredith at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn Thursday. “He’s annoyed that he let someone get the drop on him.”
Witnesses said they heard at least 15 shots fired.
Meredith is the seventh officer shot in the line of duty since McCarthy took over as superintendent a year ago. But the city’s top cop bristled at suggestions that the violence in the city is getting out of hand.
“Everybody’s presenting the month of August as, ‘Oh my God, the world came apart!’ We’re at the same exact murder number right now that we have been for the last 10 years for the month of August: 54 murders.”
That said, McCarthy said no one in his department thinks that level of violence is “good enough," and that no one is satisfied.
“The month of August got presented a couple of weeks ago as, we were already past last year’s murder number,” he said. “But what wasn’t reported is that this was the best August we had in this city in 30 years.”
McCarthy said Meredith’s doctors worried that he might lose his leg, but that those fears had apparently been allayed.
The officer is a father of three.
