A lawyer for a man wounded in what officials have described as a shootout with Chicago police said Thursday that version of events was “absolutely not true.”
Malik Wrightsell, 34, is accused of pulling a gun out of a bag and firing once at two cops after fleeing a traffic stop earlier this month in South Shore.
One of the officers was struck in their bulletproof vest, Cook County prosecutors have said. The officer then returned fire, hitting Wrightsell multiple times. Prosecutors said the other cop was also shot in his elbow during the exchange of gunfire.
Wrightsell’s attorney, Cierra Norris, told reporters gathered outside police headquarters that she and her client’s family “believe confidently that after our investigation … that is going to be revealed as not being what happened.”
Norris argued that a struggle had ensued after “an illegal foot chase,” and “a firearm went off.”
Wrightsell was stopped the morning of July 3 while driving a “non-street legal vehicle” in the 2000 block of East 79th Street, according to a statement from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Prosecutors later described it as a “dune buggy style vehicle” that lacked proper registration and was not allowed on the street.
Norris said Wrightsell is “known throughout his community” for creating go-carts and motorbikes. She said he was bringing one of those vehicles to his son’s sixth birthday party when he was stopped.
A check revealed Wrightsell didn’t have any insurance or registration for the vehicle, according to prosecutors. When officers returned and ordered him out of the vehicle he fled within seconds, prosecutors said.
According to Norris, Whitesell “was scared, and so he ran.”
Officers caught up to him in an alley, where the struggle and ensuing shooting incident happened, COPA said.
Norris wouldn’t address whether Wrightsell had a firearm, but she argued the official narrative is “absolutely not true.”
“It’s our contention that the bullet that harmed a Chicago police officer did not come from Malik,” Norris said.
She, along with Wrightsell’s family, are calling on COPA to release the body camera footage of the shooting incident immediately. Under city law, the agency has up to 60 days to release the footage.
“We want the full bodycam,” said Wrighsell’s sister, Ardice Marshall. “We want to see it intact, we want to see exactly what happened. We want the world to see, as they all labeled him a shooter, a police killer, a police officer shooter.
“Let the bodycam show what we all know about him, that he was in fear for his life … and this just took a turn.”
Wrightsell has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery to a peace officer, aggravated assault of a peace officer, resisting or obstructing a peace officer and two weapons offenses. He also received a ticket for operating a non-highway vehicle, court records show.
He was ordered detained pending trial.
“It’s not fair that Malik is being held in Cook County [Jail] on trumped-up charges to cover up Chicago Police Department’s own shortcomings and civil-rights violations,” Norris said.