A Chicago sergeant was out of hospital Sunday night after being shot earlier while standing in the parking lot of the South Side Gresham District Police Department.
At 14:33 the service sergeant was in the southern part of the 6th District / Gresham Station, 7808 S. Halsted St., when he heard gunshots and felt pain after picking up a pasture on his chin, police said.
Just over ten minutes later, the 45-year-old was tracked down and rushed to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in good condition, police and Chicago police said.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown visited the sergeant in the hospital Sunday afternoon and noted in a tweet that the wounded police were “recovering in a good mood.” During a brief news conference at the hospital a short while later, Brown described the sergeant’s injury as a ‘superficial pasture’. He was released Sunday night, a police spokesman said.
Police said earlier Thursday that no one was in custody in connection with the shooting. And Brown told reporters that the investigation led by Area Two detectives was still ‘very preliminary’.
‘Right now we’re scraping our video, both on the station and in the POD camera, as well as any other [closed circuit television] private video nearby for further evidence, ”Brown said.
One of our own was shot in the @ ChicagoCAPS06 police district’s parking lot earlier today as a Chicago police sergeant picked up a pasture in the ken area and was transported to a local hospital in good condition. @ Area2Detectives investigated, no offenders are in custody.
Chicago Superintendent of Police David O. Brown (@ChiefDavidBrown) 14 March 2021
Brown said the sergeant is the first officer to be hit by gunfire this year, though he added that 12 others have already been shot. Brown noted that the figures recorded last year were surpassed when 79 officers were shot and ten of them were hit.
“It only underscores the dangers of policing in the current environment in which we find ourselves,” Brown told the news conference.
The sergeant’s identity was not released, but police said he was a 26-year-old veteran of the department designated in the Gresham district. Police said he received 127 awards from the department, including 13 compliments, nine complimentary letters and 73 honors.