An off-duty Chicago police officer was grazed in the arm Wednesday night when several people blocked his SUV in an alley on the Near West Side and opened fire, authorities said.
The officer was coming home from dinner around 9:15 p.m. when he noticed several trash bins blocking the alley in the 2200 block of West Maypole Avenue, according to interim Police Supt. Fred Waller.
When he got out to move them out of the way, as many as five people “confronted him and began firing upon him,” Waller said.
The officer exchanged gunfire before driving off, Waller said. The officer, in his 20s, was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition.
“I did speak with him,” Waller told reporters. “Naturally, he’s very emotional, and happy to just be grazed in the arm. Because of the amount of shell casings we found out there, it could have been very, very much worse.”
A white SUV with a bullet hole through the windshield was cordoned off with crime tape at the scene of the shooting. Waller said a gun was recovered.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating their incident. The officer will be placed on administrative duties for 30 days, routine after a shooting.
