A police sergeant in Chicago was shot in the face outside a police precinct in the city’s 6th district Sunday, according to the Chicago Police Department.
“One of our own was shot in the [6th] police district parking lot earlier today, as a Chicago Police sergeant sustained a graze wound to the chin area & was transported to a local hospital in good condition,” Chicago Police Superintendent David O. Brown tweeted Sunday.
“[Area 2 Detectives] are investigating, no offenders in custody,” he added.
Whether the sergeant was targeted or struck with a stray bullet remains unclear. The officer’s identity has not been released, but Brown said they remain in “good spirits” in the hospital.
“Our officers display an enormous level of resiliency and put themselves in harm’s way each and every day, whether it’s responding to a call or simply standing in their own parking lot,” Brown said.
According to Brown, the shooting marks the 13th officer shot so far in 2021. Last year, 70 Chicago Police Department officers were shot.
“God bless the men and women of the Chicago Police Department and all officers throughout our country who risk their lives for our safety each and every day,” Brown tweeted.
The Windy City recorded a staggering 769 homicides in 2020, increasing 55 percent from 2019 – a jump in killings that puts last year among the highest in Chicago’s history, reversing a three-year trend, the Associated Press reported.
The city also logged 3,261 shootings in 2020, a significant spike from 2,140 shootings in 2019. Deadly shootings jumped by 53 percent, with December alone totaling 50, more than twice the number during the same month a year earlier.
ABC 7 reported that 78 percent of Chicago’s gun violence victims were black, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
The spike in violent crime across the country last year was fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, government lockdowns and other restrictions that created an economic crisis and civil unrest.
According to Brown, 2020 was the “perfect storm” for violence, adding that fighting the uptick in violence and protecting the public was “all-hands-on-deck effort,” Fox News reported.
“The criminal justice ecosystem, however, was profoundly impacted and disrupted by the global coronavirus pandemic and the death of George Floyd,” he said. “Our Chicago police officers faced an unprecedented set of circumstances in contending with a spike in violent crime, made even more difficult by having to contend with a health pandemic while facing extended periods of heightened civil unrest and looting.”
