By Annie Sweeney
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — A man carrying a loaded Glock up to communion at a South Side church Sunday morning, apparently for protection, was arrested by a high-ranking police official who happened to be attending the same Catholic mass.
David Kucia, 57, was charged with a weapons violation after his arrest by Deputy Chief James Keating and Sgt. Joseph Kipka at Nativity of Our Lord, the Bridgeport parish where the Daley family was reared.
Keating was kneeling in his pew, having just taken communion himself at the 11 a.m. mass, when two eagle-eyed ushers knelt beside him and quietly told him someone in the back of church had a gun. The man had just moved the weapon from his back pocket to his waistband -- it was mostly hidden under his shirt -- and was in line for communion. And, they added, nobody at the tight-knit parish recognized him as one of the regular cops who attend.
“I said, ‘No problem.’ Just act normal,’' Keating said. " . . . Don’t make eye contact.”
Keating, who suspected Kucia was not a threat by the way he was acting, watched him take communion. Keating then genuflected and followed Kucia out of the church where he made small talk on the front steps about the unusually hot weather. Then Keating told Kucia he knew he had a gun.
Kucia allegedly first said he was a cop but then quickly changed his story, saying he’d been robbed and threatened and needed to protect himself. So he was carrying.
“I said you can’t do it in church,’' Keating said. “You can’t do it anywhere in the city of Chicago.’'
Kipka had joined Keating by then and the two made the arrest, also finding a shotgun in Kucia’s truck.
Copyright 2008 The Chicago Sun-Times