Thirty-nine shots were fired Tuesday night during an Englewood gunbattle with an Indiana fugitive that injured a Chicago Police captain and a detective and left one man dead, Supt. Garry McCarthy said.
That breaks down to 20 bullets fired by police, eight fired by U.S. Marshals, and 11 rounds fired by the accused gunman — Daniel Brown, 42, of Indianapolis, Indiana — McCarthy told reporters at Chicago Police Headquarters on Thursday afternoon.
Brown was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, unlawful use of a firearm and being a fugitive from justice.
But McCarthy also divulged for the first time that a second police officer had been wounded in the firefight near 72nd and Lowe. Brown barricaded himself in his sister’s first-floor apartment and a six-hour standoff followed.
McCarthy said a detective was hit in the leg by a bullet fragment. He didn’t realize until he got home that the blood on his pants was his own. An X-ray later revealed a bullet fragment was burrowed into his leg, McCarthy said.
Capt. Ed Kulbida, who was shot in the head and shoulder, was released from the hospital Thursday.
“Captain Kulbida is an executive in this department, yet he led his police officers from the front,” McCarthy said. “That’s what we expect of our leaders, and that’s what we get, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
Daniel Jackson, 42, Brown’s sister’s boyfriend, was killed in the gun battle.
McCarthy said preliminary forensic evidence suggests Jackson was shot and killed by a bullet from Brown’s .40 cal. handgun, which had a high-capacity magazine.
“He may have been shot by Mr. Brown,” McCarthy said. “Forensic evidence . . . indicates that he was not shot by an officer, that he was shot inside at close range inside the apartment.”
Initially police said Jackson was an “offender” in the standoff. But on Thursday, McCarthy backed away from that statement.
“I can’t say with certainty,” he said. The “first few reports [made] at the scene may not be correct.”
McCarthy also offered more details about how the shooting went down. And he said that Kulbida, acting on his own information, drove up to the apartment building, which U.S. Marshals and a CPD fugitive unit already had staked out.
After a chat, Kulbida and other law-enforcement officers approached the house to serve a warrant on Brown, who wanted for a weekend shooting spree that wounded three people in Indianapolis.
Police were outside the building when Brown opened fire from a first-floor apartment, wounding Kulbida, McCarthy said. The officers took cover and were pinned down inside the entrance of the building.
Eventually, they decided the safest route out was through the back of the building. Officers, including the detective, helped Kulbida to safety. More gunfire was exchanged as they made their exit, and the detective was hit by a bullet fragment, he said.
As the standoff wore on, police tried to communicate with Brown with zero success, McCarthy said. Before midnight ,police threw a stun grenade in the apartment. Minutes later, they stormed in and arrested Brown, who was in a closet.
