A night of holiday shopping in the southwest suburbs was interrupted by gunfire when police shot a man who, while attempting to flee, allegedly used his Pontiac Sunfire to drag an officer through a department store parking lot.
Two suspected shoplifters alleged to be working with the driver are facing felony charges. The driver, who was being treated for his injuries, had not been charged as of Friday evening.
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Debbie Turner and her daughter were leaving the Romeoville Kohl’s store after 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving when Turner saw an officer, his shirt off and shoulder bandaged, getting into an ambulance. Nearby, other officers were arresting a man.
Then she saw her car, surrounded by crime tape and not far from a black Sunfire with its side window shot out.
Turner had been inside Kohl’s with her daughter getting a jump on holiday shopping when the officer chased an alleged shoplifter to the Sunfire. As the waiting car sped off, police said, the door closed on the officer’s arm, and he was dragged through the parking lot. After the driver ignored commands to stop, police said another officer fired three or four shots.
The scene caused a spectacle in the bustling parking lot outside the store. People stared and took photos before walking around the yellow tape blocking one of the store’s entrances.
But inside the Kohl’s, it was business as usual.
“I didn’t hear a thing,” said Turner, of Lockport.
The car’s 52-year-old driver was struck by one of the bullets and wounded in his left arm, police said. The officer was treated and released from Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital.
Two Joliet men, both convicted felons with lengthy criminal histories, were held in the Will County jail on felony theft charges.
Robert Russell Jr., 51, also faced charges of attempted murder and obstructing an officer. Police said Russell, of the 500 block of Francis Street in Joliet, was a passenger in the Sunfire.
Gerald Chamberlain Jr., 28, of the 1300 block of Englewood Avenue in Joliet, faced a single theft charge. Police said they arrested Chamberlain inside the Kohl’s. He was not in the car when the shots were fired.
The driver’s two alleged accomplices both have criminal pasts and track records of disobeying law enforcement.
Russell was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer in 2009. He also was sent to prison on theft and drug charges in 2002, according to online Will County court records.
Chamberlain was jailed in 2008 for resisting a peace officer or correctional employee. He was sent to prison in 2009 on a cocaine charge, for which an Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman said he is on parole. Chamberlain is awaiting trial on another felony drug charge, records show.
Employees at the Romeoville Kohl’s location referred comment to company spokeswoman Sydney Hofer, who declined to say whether private security or off-duty police were at the store Thursday evening.
Hofer said in a statement that Kohl’s was cooperating with the investigation but would not provide additional information.
The episode made for a grim start to the holiday shopping season, but it didn’t seem to deter late-night consumers looking for the perfect Christmas gift.
Several shoppers approaching Kohl’s walked to the edge of the police tape without breaking stride, prompting warnings from officers not to duck under the tape.
Observing the scene from the department store’s window, Turner’s daughter Meghan said she was still planning to shop elsewhere early Friday.
“I just need a nap,” she said, “so I can go back out at 5 a.m.”
While most retailers reported peaceful — if hectic — opening hours, some others saw the shopping craze erupt into violence, according to police and media reports.
The incidents included a police officer injured while breaking up a fight outside a California Wal-Mart, a shopper shot in the leg over a TV in Las Vegas, and a woman spitting on another woman’s child in an argument over baby clothes at a New Jersey Wal-Mart.
Black Friday, the biggest U.S. shopping day of the year, began a few hours earlier this season as many department stores for the first time opted to open or start discounts Thanksgiving night.
In Las Vegas, a shopper was shot in the leg during a struggle with thieves who tried to take the TV he had just bought as he was carrying it to a nearby apartment complex, according to a report by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.
A police officer in Rialto, Calif., suffered a fractured hand and finger after responding to an assault in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart just after the sales started Thursday, said Sgt. Richard Royce of the Police Department in Rialto, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.
“It was a pretty bizarre scene,” Royce said.
In New Jersey, a Wal-Mart shopper was arrested after becoming belligerent and attacking a police officer inside a store in Garfield, police said. Several officers subdued a 23-year-old suspect and took him to jail.
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Officers also ticketed a 29-year-old woman who spit on another woman’s child during an argument over infant clothing at the same store, police said.
Tribune news services contributed.