A Chicago police officer has been released from an area hospital after he was shot in the face during a struggle with a suspect outside a popular North Side shopping area, but area residents are becoming increasingly fed up with the amount of violence they are experiencing in their community.
The officer, who has not been identified, was grazed in the cheek by a bullet when a man fired three shots at him during an altercation outside of a beauty shop Monday afternoon. The incident occurred in the 1000 block of West North Avenue, and began when a man inside an Ulta store began to behave erratically.
An officer arrived on scene to talk to the man, and that’s when a struggle began. That struggle spilled out into the parking lot, and by the time a second officer got to the scene, the suspect had pulled out a weapon and had fired three shots at the first responding officer.
The suspect was taken into custody, a gun was recovered, and the officer was treated and released from a local hospital.
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Now, area residents are expressing their frustrations with the situation in their community, and Chicago Ald. Brian Hopkins is one of them. He says that crime is up in the area, and he is also concerned about the way police are perceived in the city.
“Every Chicagoan should understand that they are not the enemy,” he said.
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Area residents say that they are terrified about the situation.
“If they’ll shoot a police officer, they’ll shoot anybody,” one said. “That gives me the chills, and it’s scary whoever you are. I’m worried to walk to my car. I’m worried to take my purse anywhere.”
Hopkins says that attacks on police officers are up significantly over 2020, and that the city’s rising crime numbers paint a harrowing picture.
“I don’t know how much more of this we can take,” he said. “How our city can survive.”
