A Chicago police officer has been benched after opening fire during a drunken gunfight early Saturday in Austin that left a companion seriously wounded, according to oversight officials and sources.
The exchange of gunfire erupted about 1:25 a.m. Saturday when a vehicle carrying two off-duty Chicago cops and three other people stopped in the 1000 block of South Mayfield Avenue, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability said in a statement.
Someone then hopped out of another vehicle and began shooting it out with the occupants of the vehicle carrying the cops, according to COPA and Chicago police. A 26-year-old man who was riding with the officers was wounded and was taken in the vehicle to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where he was listed in serious condition.
Police officials later informed COPA that one of the off-duty officers had opened fire, the oversight agency said. The officer, who was hired in 2017, has been relieved of his policing powers, according to a department spokesperson.
Law enforcement sources said he was intoxicated.
The shooting was partially captured by third-party cameras, COPA said. No one has been arrested.
Officers from Oak Park responded about 1:40 a.m. to a call of a person shot at the hospital and watched a vehicle “flee the scene,” according to Oak Park police. A vehicle matching its description was spotted a short time later and was ultimately curbed near Austin Boulevard and Madison Street, where officers saw it was riddled with “multiple bullet holes.”
The driver was then asked to step out of the vehicle, and officers found a gun in his pocket and another under a seat. He had a valid license to carry the weapons publicly, Oak Park police said.
Chicago police officers ultimately showed up “and took over the investigation” because the shooting happened in the city, Oak Park police said.