A bank robbery suspect shot and critically wounded a veteran Chicago police officer Tuesday, holding the bleeding detective hostage for more than two hours and touching off a tense police standoff around a South Loop apartment building, authorities said.
Joseph M. Airhart, a 19-year veteran assigned to an FBI task force, was shot in the temple as he led colleagues into an apartment to arrest a man suspected in the $239,000 armed robbery of a supermarket bank branch Friday on the Southwest Side, the FBI said.
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The suspect, Daniel M. Salley, a 41-year-old father of six whose family said he had an explosive temper, was shot four times in the ensuing gun battle with Airhart’s team, who were forced into the hallway as Salley opened fire, the FBI said.
Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital operated on Airhart, 45, for more than four hours. They described his injuries as massive and said Tuesday night that the next 48 to 72 hours would be crucial to his survival.
“How quickly a patient with these types of injuries can recover–if they can recover–varies dramatically,” said Dr. Hunt Batjer, chairman of neurological surgery at Northwestern.
The shooting comes as Chicago police mourn the killings of two officers in less than two months.
The incident started just after 10 a.m. Tuesday on the third floor of a seven-story building at 1307 S. Wabash Ave. It ended about 12:20 p.m. after authorities granted Salley’s demand for a telephone interview with a television reporter, law-enforcement officials said.
In the interview, the suspect complained to Paul Meincke of WLS-Ch. 7 that the Internal Revenue Service was harassing clients of his tax service, preventing him from earning a living, Meincke said.
Salley, of the 9200 block of South Dauphin Avenue, was shot three times in the legs and once in the chest. He was listed in fair condition Tuesday night at Cook County Hospital. Authorities said they expect to charge Salley on Wednesday.
The FBI said the apartment was rented by a friend of Salley’s. Two of her children, ages 6 and 13, were inside but not harmed in the gun battle. Neighbors said the woman had moved into the building about a month ago.
“I was sitting at home, working, and I heard some voices in the hallway, just kind of some screaming and stomping,” said neighbor Firas Ghantous, 28.
“It didn’t sound like they were fighting,” Ghantous said. “The next thing I know, a lot of bangs. I thought it sounded like it was firecrackers…. Then about a minute later I heard the FBI, saying, `FBI! FBI! We have a man down, Get someone up here.'”
Airhart was one of a dozen members of the FBI’s violent-crimes task force on the arrest Tuesday, said FBI spokesman Ross Rice. Several were guarding exits or were on the street below. At least two others hid around a corner outside the apartment, Rice said.
In a standard police ruse, Airhart knocked on the door and said he was a deliveryman with a package, police said. After the door was opened and Airhart stepped inside, Salley ran into the apartment, grabbed a gun, turned and fired a shot at the pursuing Airhart, Rice said.
As the officer collapsed on the floor, at least two colleagues coming in behind Airhart shot Salley four times, authorities said. But they were forced to retreat into the hallway by a hail of gunfire from the suspect, Rice said.
Salley was then able to close and lock the door, trapping the bleeding officer inside, the FBI said. He gave up around 12:22 p.m. after the telephone interview, authorities said. FBI supervisors from Washington flew to Chicago Tuesday to conduct a full inquiry, Rice said.
Salley was wanted on a federal bank robbery complaint filed Saturday, authorities said. The morning before, he allegedly walked into the Charter One Bank branch at the Dominick’s supermarket at 3250 W. 87th St., brandished a handgun, stole cash from a teller, vaulted the counter and made another teller inside the bank’s vault fill a duffel bag, the FBI said.
He fled the store saying, “Like I said last time, tell President Bush to kiss my [posterior],” the FBI said.
Salley is suspected of robbing the same bank a week earlier, the FBI said. In that robbery, a security guard said the suspect was dressed in military fatigues and combat boots and put a gun to his head in the store parking lot.
“He said, `Do what I tell you and you’ll live. If you don’t, you’ll die,'” the guard said in an interview Tuesday.
Salley drove off from Friday’s robbery in a sport-utility vehicle he took for a test drive from a dealership on Aug. 15 but never returned, the FBI said. He allegedly told a car salesman who noticed a weapon in his waistband that he was a police officer, authorities said.
It is unclear how Salley got the weapon he allegedly used Tuesday and in Friday’s robbery. The FBI said Salley had two firearm owner’s identification cards, though one was canceled and the other revoked.
Larnette Salley, the suspect’s ex-wife, said, “He lived a clean life…. Read the Bible daily, prayed daily.” Still, she said he had grown increasingly volatile over the years.
On Jan. 2, 2000, Chicago police arrested Salley after he allegedly pulled a handgun and threatened two of his children, telling them, “I’m going to beat you first, then I’ll put a couple of bullets in your head,” according to the police report.
Court records allege he also told his children they would have a chance to repent before their deaths. He is accused of then whipping them with an extension cord.
After the arrest, his ex-wife pleaded with authorities to get medical treatment for Salley, she said, adding that he never got it. “He couldn’t handle the pressure,” she said.
Federal prosecutors said Airhart played an integral role in the 1996 undercover investigation of seven Austin District tactical officers who were convicted of robbing drug dealers. It was one of the city’s most notorious police corruption cases.
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Mark Filip, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Airhart on the case, said Airhart was invaluable in winning the confidence of potential witnesses who were skeptical that police could be trusted to investigate their own.
“He can gain the respect of anyone, an elderly woman on the West Side, a 17-year-old crack dealer or an assistant U.S. attorney,” Filip said. “He brings a sense of humanity and perspective to his work.”
Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Netols, the lead prosecutor in the Austin case, praised Airhart as relentless, energetic and as skilled an interrogator as any law-enforcement officer he knows.
Netols, who was at the hospital to check on Airhart Tuesday night, also said, “These things are getting all too frequent.”
The shooting of Airhart comes nine days after Englewood tactical officer Eric D. Lee, 37, was fatally shot in the head while trying to break up a fight in a South Side alley.
And it comes just shy of two months since Monroe District Officer Brian Strouse, also assigned to the tactical unit, was killed June 30 doing gang and drug surveillance in Pilsen.
As he kept a vigil at Northwestern Hospital, Police Supt. Terry Hillard asked the city to keep Airhart in its prayers.
“We’re going to have some heavy hearts, but he’s in our prayers,” Hillard said. “And we’re going to continue to do the job that we swore we would do.”