Police Shooting in Wicker Park

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Oct 1, 2006 7:59PM

Last night, walking home from the local watering hole we noticed Division, just west of Damen, was blocked off by a paddy wagon and a mass amount of police cars were lined up on the street. Naturally, we walked over. We couldn't tell what was going on, just saw a guy being rolled in a stretcher into an ambulance.

Like we said, we were coming home from a bar so we forgot about it 15 minutes later. We were reminded of it this morning when we saw this article on the Sun Times website. Evidently, four men were trying to get into a restaurant (we are guessing Bravo) and because their reputation preceded them they were denied entrance. According to the article, they were "self-admitted" gang members. An off duty police detective was also at the restaurant and he told them to leave. When walking away one of the men pulled out a radio faceplate and pointed it at the officer. The detective then fired shots at the 27-year old, grazing his shoulder. Firing "shots" and only grazing his shoulder is pretty scary, that area on Division is pretty busy at that time of night. We are also all for on-duty police officer breaking up scuffles, but we aren't so sure off-duty police officers going to a club at midnight should keep their guns at their hip.

Thanks, Timmy!