CHICAGO — An officer shot a man who climbed a fire escape to break into a West Side police station and grabbed guns being used for training, Supt. David Brown said Monday.
About noon, the man went to the Police Department’s Homan Square facility, 1011 S. Homan Ave., and spoke to agency members, Brown said at a news conference. Afterward, he went outside and climbed up a fire escape into the station, Brown said.
He entered the building through a fifth-floor door that had been propped open because there’s “no ventilation on that particular floor,” the superintendent said.
On that floor, officers had been doing training work and had a table of guns out for that training, Brown said. The guns did not have live rounds, but it was not immediately clear if they were empty as they might have contained non-lethal ammunition, Brown said.
The man grabbed two guns and pointed them at officers in the training area, Brown said.
Officers saw the man, and one fired shots at the man and hit him, Brown said.
The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, said Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt. Brown said the man’s wounds were “non-life-threatening.”
An officer sprained an ankle during the incident, Brown said.
The shooting is being investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, Brown said.
The Homan Square facility is one of the city’s most notorious — and secretive — police sites. A 2015 report by The Guardian found at least 7,000 people were disappeared to the off-the-books interrogation compound, and many were physically and mentally tortured into giving false confessions.
Activists have camped out near the site to demand the city defund the police.