A Chicago police officer was shot in the leg after responding to a call of a burglary in the Gold Coast neighborhood early Monday, according to police. A suspect was also wounded in the “exchange of gunfire.”
Shortly after 4 a.m., police were called to a store on Oak Street for an attempted smash-and-grab burglary involving several vehicles, Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling told reporters. Several suspects fled as officers arrived, but police caught up with one near Walton and State streets, Snelling added.
An “exchange of gunfire” soon followed, and CPD officers applied a tourniquet to the wounded officer before driving him to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. That officer, 55, has been with CPD for 17 years, Snelling said. He was one of two officers who fired their weapons.
The wounded suspect was undergoing surgery, also at Northwestern, as of Monday morning, the superintendent added. Police are searching for other suspects involved in the smash-and-grab attempt, and the CPD detectives and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability are investigating the shooting, Snelling said.
The downtown area and other nearby neighborhoods have faced a rash of smash-and-grab burglaries in recent months. The tactic involves a crew of thieves driving a vehicle through storefronts and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise before fleeing in cars.
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SVRN, a luxury retail store that opened in 2019 in the West Loop, was hit by burglars four times last year.
“We want to keep growing and be more of a staple in the community, but if this keeps happening over and over again, what are we supposed to do?” SVRN owner David Kim told the Tribune last month.
More than 7,400 burglaries were reported citywide in 2023, a 2% decrease from 2022, according to CPD data.
baiduhai’s Alysa Guffey contributed.