Man shot after climbing through Chicago police building fire escape into SWAT training, turning police guns on them, top cop says
A man climbed five flights up a fire escape of the Chicago Police Department’s Homan Square facility at midday Monday and found himself in the middle of SWAT training for officers, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
At least one officer shot and injured the man after he picked up at least two guns that were lying on a table as part of the training and pointed them at officers, Brown said. An officer was also injured with a sprained ankle during the encounter.
The incident began around 11:30 a.m. when police saw the man on video, walking eastbound on Fillmore Street toward the Homan Square facility, located at 1011 S. Homan Ave., Brown said.
The man asked a guard where he could pick up property. A section of the facility is where the public goes to retrieve items from police. The guard directed him to the other side of the building, but instead of going toward that direction, he walked westbound on Fillmore toward Homan Avenue.
Captured on video, police said, the man then found a fire escape stairwell, and he “manipulates several items” to reach the stairwell, pull it down and climb it, Brown said. He climbed the stairwell to the fifth floor, where a SWAT training was occurring.
The exterior door to the training was propped open because there are no windows or ventilation on that floor, which is how the man made it from the stairwell onto the floor.
Once inside, the man saw the open training area, where guns were on a table, Brown said. The guns did not have live rounds in them because they were being transitioned from live rounds to “simulated munitions,” such as pellets, for the training.
The officers and supervisors saw the man grab at least two guns off the table, Brown said. The officers notified other officers who were fully armed and not part of the training.
“That notification has an immediate response from officers from other parts of the building,” Brown said. “The person, the offender, points those guns at officers, and is fired upon and struck by one of the officers.”
The man was taken to a hospital, where he is recovering from non-life-threatening injuries, Brown said.
The man is from Waukegan and has “got some arrests,” Brown said, but police are not yet sure if any of the arrests led to convictions.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is in charge of the investigation, Brown said.
Some media reports said Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail might have been involved in the exercise. At a news conference on another topic Monday, the mayor said that was not accurate.
Most of the officers who were in the training were district tactical officers, Brown said. None of the officers involved in the incident were in the mayor’s “plainclothes” detail, but “about three” uniformed officers who are part of Lightfoot’s protection, assigned to either City Hall or Lightfoot’s home, were there at the time of the shooting.
The Homan Square facility is home to many of CPD’s specialized police units, including those that are covert, that investigate an array of gang and drug crimes.
Almost two hours after the shooting, a few blocks down South Homan Avenue were closed off with police tape as officers redirected traffic around the facility. The surroundings seemed mostly undisturbed as police cars were stationed on surrounding streets.
Bionca Johnson, who lives in the neighborhood, said she first heard of the shooting on the Citizen app, which said to shelter in place. She said she then decided to go notify the charter school around the corner where her daughter attends sixth grade, the LEARN Romano Butler Campus, which remained on a soft lockdown.
“They didn’t even know — the principal came out and she didn’t even know what was going on and I was letting her know what actions took place,” Johnson said.
