CHICAGO (CBS) — A man was shot and wounded by police on the Near West Side Friday afternoon after police said the person was found armed with a gun in a car.
The incident happened in the 2100 block of West Adams Street.
At 3:12 p.m., officers conducted an investigatory stop on a car. They found someone in the car with a gun, police said.
One officer shot the man in the car, police said. He was taken into custody and taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County for treatment.
A woman who identified herself as the sister of the person who was shot said the entire family was devastated. She did not want to go on camera, and said it was still too difficult to process what had happened.
The woman said her brother was fighting for his life, and it was not certain whether he would survive.
An officer was also taken to the hospital for observation.
According to unconfirmed dispatch reports, the suspect did not fire shots at police.
Police said a gun was recovered at the scene.
As CBS 2’s Marybel González reported, there were still more questions than answers Friday night on the shooting.
Police did not specify what caused them to stop the vehicle in the first place, or what happened leading up to the shooting.
We tried to get some clarification. Meanwhile, police first said there would be a news conference at the scene on the matter, but later canceling the news conference and issuing a written statement.
One neighbor said she heard the shots as they happened.
“Definitely concerning, definitely a lot of emotions running high, and just a lot of uncertainty, because we don’t know what’s going on. We just see a lot of police, a lot of people who are not happy, and it’s definitely disconcerting as a resident, and as a Chicagoan here in the Near West area; it never has happened before,” Asha Whitehorne said.
At the scene, several streets were taped off for hours – leaving some residents unable to get into their homes.
“No one wants to be told to get away from their own place of residence, so there’s lots of uncertainty – because no one knows what happened; more or less what’s going on,” Whitehorne said.
Several local activists also showed up to the scene, demanding clarity on the case.
“They don’t know if the guy had a confrontation with the officer or not,” said activist Troy Gaston. “They don’t know nothing.”
“The community is very much so unsure on what to do, outside of how they should go about this type of action,” said activist Dania Kent. “They are very much so concerned, afraid, and just looking for answers.”
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating the incident. As per protocol, the officers involved will be placed on routine administrative duties for 30 days.
This was the second police-involved shooting in Chicago in less than 24 hours.
Around 11 p.m. Thursday, two Chicago police officers from the Community Safety Team responded to a ShotSpotter alert of gunfire in the 5300 block of South May Street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Police arrived on the scene and approached a group of people. CPD said as police “struggled with an armed offender,” one officer discharged their weapon, hitting the offender.
The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition.
No officers were injured. Police said they recovered a weapon at the scene.
