by Police1 Senior Contributor Chuck Remsberg
An off-duty Chicago police officer, armed and on his way to work early Easter Sunday, fatally wounded a gunman who had just shot and killed an alleged robbery victim. The gunman had also fired multiple rounds at another lawman, seriously injuring him.
The suspect was said to be part of a sex scam/robbery ring operating on Chicago’s South Side. The off-duty officer was not identified, but a police department spokesman says that without his intervention the suspect undoubtedly would have shot the wounded lawman more times, possibly killing him.
The incident lends support to officers who argue that cops should go armed whenever they leave home, even off duty. The need for urgent action to save innocent lives can arise without warning at any time and in any place.
According to police sources, here’s how the Chicago events unfolded:
On Easter Eve, two teenage women lured two men to a third-floor apartment on the city’s South Side after the men responded to a “dating advertisement.” The women expressed sexual interest in the men during conversations on a telephone “chat line” and promised them a “party.”
When the men arrived, the woman behaved seductively while managing surreptitiously to pat the men down, confirming that they were not packing weapons. Then the women cued their boyfriends, who burst into the place wielding guns. The men were commanded to strip, their eyes and mouths were taped over and their arms were tied with shoelaces. The intent apparently was to rob and possibly to kill them, according to a police sergeant.
Shortly after midnight, one of the men was able to wiggle free, pulled his pants on and fled the building. One of the boyfriends, age 20, pursued and shot the man dead in a nearby vacant lot.
At that moment, Supervisory Special Agent Hugh McCormack, 33, and his K-9, Devil, on patrol for the Norfolk Southern Railroad, which has tracks about a block away, happened to drive by in his squad car and witnessed the shooting. McCormack stopped and ordered the gunman to drop his weapon.
Instead, the suspect fired three fast rounds from a 9mm semi-auto, hitting McCormack in the lower abdomen and the left arm.
Luckily, the off-duty Chicago officer drove up to the scene just then, en route to his stationhouse. When he challenged the suspect, the gunman fired at the officer, but missed. The officer shot back, delivering a fatal round, center mass. At this writing, McCormack, a former municipal police officer, is reported to be recovering in a suburban hospital, the two women have been charged with assorted crimes and one of the boyfriends has yet to be apprehended.
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