CHICAGO _ The two plainclothes Chicago police officers wounded in the Back of the Yards neighborhood were shot with a high-powered rifle in an area where gangs have been increasingly using military-style weapons, Chicago police said Wednesday.
Investigators have seized a rifle believed used in the attack, along with a handgun. They also arrested three people and were searching for others, according to chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
One officer was hit in the arm and hip, the other in the back. They were taken to Stroger Hospital and initially listed in serious condition. Both were released from the hospital Wednesday and were "recovering at home," Guglielmi said.
Names of the Deering District officers have not been released, but one of them is the son of a high-ranking Chicago police official, sources said.
They had been riding in an unmarked van, following up an earlier investigation, police said. Around 9 p.m., "two vehicles pulled up and the occupants began firing shots indiscriminately in the direction of the officers," the department said in a statement.
The officers returned fire but they apparently didn't hit anyone, the department said. Their van was riddled with bullet holes, Guglielmi said.
The other two vehicles sped off. One was found less than two miles away, according to a source citing preliminary information.
It was not clear where the rifle was recovered. Gulglielmi said ballistics tests were being expedited.
In February, the Chicago Tribune reported that rifles were being increasingly used by gangs in Back of the Yards.
At the time, more than 30 shootings believed to have been tied to semi-automatic rifles occurred there and in neighboring Brighton Park over nine months. At least 46 people were shot in those attacks, 13 fatally.
Police said this was the only area of the city where rifles styled after AR-15s and AK-47s were regularly used, a menacing new development in the gang fights.
It's unclear how many of the high-powered rifles have been used in the shootings, but police suspect they are being around by members of four Hispanic gangs in the Deering police district, which covers Back of the Yards and Brighton Park.
Two of the gangs _ La Raza and the Almighty Saints _ have been fighting for decades. But the conflict has expanded to the Satan Disciples and Gangster Two-Sixes in neighboring Brighton Park, where violence is less frequent.
Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Tuesday night's shooting "is just another example of how dangerous this job is."
"Listen, if they will fire at police officers like that, they have no thought process in terms of firing at other citizens of this great city," he added. "So we are going to get them."
At the scene of the shooting, Thomas Murdock, 51, stood in a small crowd watching investigators work. He was in a Dunkin' Donuts when he heard gunfire and saw paramedics tending to two officers, one of them on a stretcher.
"It was like whack, whack, whack. Big guns. Next thing I know, I find out police got shot," Murdock said. "The Dunkin' Donuts lady was like, 'What the (expletive) are they shooting for?' My mind was like, 'Holy s---! I hope they don't run in.'"
Minutes later, a procession of police vehicles raced north.
