An off-duty Chicago police officer shot and injured a man Tuesday night after stopping to help at the scene of a car accident.
A spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police said the officer witnessed the car accident around 10:30 p.m. on the 4400 block of West Armitage.
When he stopped, a man approached his unmarked car, asking him if he had a problem. Police said the officer told the man no and the identified himself as a police officer. At that point the man allegedly opened the squad car's door, reached into his waistband and lunged into the car.
When he stopped, a man approached his unmarked car, asking him if he had a problem. Police said the officer told the man no and the identified himself as a police officer. At that point the man allegedly opened the squad car's door, reached into his waistband and lunged into the car.
“The officer announced his office and ordered [the] offender to remove his hand from his waistband. [The offender] refused to comply with any verbal commands and continued his aggressive behavior toward the officer,” said and official police statement from the Office of News Affairs stated,
Police told NBCChicago the officer feared for his life and shot the man in the hand.
The suspect, described only as a 38-year-old man from a nearby suburb, was taken into custody and transported to Mount Sinai Hospital for treatment.
The shooting came just hours after Chicago Police Superintendent Gerry McCarthy reiterated the need for the community to cooperate with police in their efforts to get guns off Chicago's streets.
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Chicago Detectives and the Independent Police Review Authority are investigating the incident.
