CPD Investigates Possible Police Targeting After Off-Duty Cops Robbed And Shot In Arm In Separate Incidents


Tonight, members of the Chicago Police Department are investigating whether or not their officers are being targeted after two incidents with off-duty police officers occurred today. It was reported that early Sunday morning, an officer in Chicago was shot while in his car and earlier in the day, in a separate incident, another officer was robbed off his gun and badge.

In the first instance with the officer, he was shot in the arm after he had finished his work shift at the 9th District police department and left the compound in his personal vehicle at about 5 a.m. The reports of the incident state that while travelling on West 31st Street, close to South Loomis Street in the Bridgeport neighborhood, he noticed that someone seemed to have been following him for several blocks. The vehicle then suddenly sped up, and in an effort to let them pass him the officer slowed down his own vehicle but instead of going around him, the van pulled alongside the Chicago Police Department’s officers.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that one of the persons in the vehicle then just pointed a gun at the off-duty officer and began firing shots at the car. While, fortunately, none of the bullets struck the officer, he was grazed in the upper arm by one.

ABC Chicago reported that though the officer did manage to get his own gun and began firing at the offenders, he was not able to take them down and the vehicle fled the scene. The officer was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to receive medical attention and was released from the facility later Sunday morning. The Chicago Police Department is currently unaware of whether or not the officer managed to shoot any of the perpetrators of his attack when he opened fire at the fleeing vehicle. A motive has not been established for the shooting, and police have not ruled out the possibility of a case of mistaken identity being responsible for the officer getting shot.

This attack was only the second such attack on CPD personnel reported this weekend, with the exception that the earlier incident did not involve any actually firing of the officer’s or the suspects’ guns.

The other possible case of police targeting occurred on Saturday night when an off-duty cop was robbed at gun point. Guglielmi said that an officer had been walking in the 3100 block of North Ravenswood with a friend at approximately 9:25 p.m. when a dark SUV pulled up and made a stop in front of them. He says that four men got out of the vehicle and approached them on the streets of the Lake View neighborhood, displaying handguns before demanding that they hand over their belongings. According to WGN TV, both the off-duty officer and his friend gave up their wallets during the robbery and the officer was also robbed of his.38-caliber handgun and his police badge.

The suspects were described as being young black men with in their late teens or early 20’s, wearing very dark clothing and hoodies and each was carrying a semi-automatic handgun during the robbery. Once they had the personal belongings from both the Chicago officer and his companion they got back into the SUV and fled the scene. They discarded the officer’s badge a bit further than when it had reportedly been stolen by the teenagers..

Once more, no motive is known for the crime and police are conducting their investigation into the possibility that the shooting in Bridgeport and the officer being robbed in Ravenswood were both possibly targeted members of the Chicago Police Department.

[Image via Leonard Zhukovsky / Shutterstock.com]

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