Officer Wounded When Gun Goes Off After Chase
UPDATED 02/27/12 8:41 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago Police officer was hospitalized Monday morning, after a police chase ended on the south lakefront with the officer's own gun discharging.
As CBS 2's Susanna Song reports, Chicago Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden said the officer was shot in the leg.
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Three men took police on a chase that ended near Rainbow Beach, at 79th Street and South Shore Drive.
It all began at 1:45 a.m., when an Englewood District patrol officer tried to make a traffic stop at Racine Avenue and Marquette Road. A man with a gun jumped out and took off running, the Sun-Times Media Wire reported.
Police caught up to the man and recovered his weapon, but the offending car also sped off, and led police on a chase that went on for nearly six miles, the wire reported.
As the offending car was about to hit a cyclone fence near the beach, Camden said the suspect jumped into the back seat. The unmanned car bounced off the fence, just as the officer was approaching the car.
"When you've been pursuing a car for a good length of time, you're not going to walk up to the car with a pencil in your hand," Camden said. "You don't know what they have, and as it turned out, they had three guns in the car, so obviously, there were some bad characters in the car."
As the officer jumped out of the way, his gun accidentally discharged.
The officer was wounded in the calf and reportedly has a broken leg. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was reported in good condition, police told the wire.
Police arrested the man and woman inside the car, and confiscated three guns. The suspects in the car suffered minor injuries when the car hit the cyclone fence, and were treated before they were taken into custody, the wire reported.
