CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago police officer shot and critically wounded a 19-year-old man Sunday after he exchanged gunfire with officers, police said.
Officers tried to stop the man Sunday afternoon when they saw him “acting suspiciously and walking,” holding something by his side, said Fred Waller, Chicago’s police chief of patrol.
The man allegedly fired at two officers after they went to question him and one officer returned fire, striking the man in the shoulder and leg, police said.
Both officers then pursued the man to the back of a residence, where he was apprehended and officers administered first aid with a tourniquet, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
A message was left Monday morning with police seeking an update on the man’s condition.
No officers were injured in the gunfire.
Waller said the wounded man had a weapon, which police recovered, and he has an extensive criminal background.
“Officers thought he had a weapon, which he did. The weapon was recovered,” Waller told reporters at the scene
Sunday’s shooting came two days after Chicago officers shot and seriously wounded man in a downtown train station after an officer spotted him jumping from one car to another in violation of a city ordinance and called for backup.
That incident was captured on bystander video and shared widely — video that Mayor Lori Lightfoot called “extremely disturbing.”
Cook County prosecutors on Sunday dropped criminal charges against the wounded man, who remained hospitalized Sunday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
