Man mistaken for murder suspect killed after he pulls gun during arrest: cops

Curtis Stagger, 21, was killed after officers attempted to serve a warrant at 1:45 p.m. in the 8100 block of South Chappel Avenue.

SHARE Man mistaken for murder suspect killed after he pulls gun during arrest: cops
Police investigate after a man was critically wounded by with Chicago police officers May 28 in South Chicago.

Police investigate after a man was critically wounded by Chicago police officers May 28 in the 8100 block of South Chappel Avenue.

David Struett/Sun-Times

Chicago police fatally shot an armed man Tuesday while mistakenly executing an arrest warrant on the wrong person in South Chicago.

Curtis Stagger, a brother of a man wanted in a May 14 murder in Roseland, allegedly pulled out a gun during the arrest, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Officers with the department’s fugitive apprehension unit attempted to arrest the 21-year-old about 1:45 p.m. in a driveway in the 8100 block of South Chappel Avenue, Sgt. Rocco Alioto said during a news conference Tuesday.

Stagger pulled out a handgun while officers went to take him into custody while he sat in a vehicle, Alioto said. An officer then shot him.

Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said Stagger was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in “very critical” condition with gunshot wounds.

Alioto said he has since been pronounced dead. An autopsy released Wednesday found Stagger died of multiple gunshot wounds, the medical examiner’s office said.

Two officers were also taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for observation, Langford said.

Alioto said investigators are trying to determine whether Stagger fired shots at police. CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi initially said officers had returned fire after a suspect shot at them.

A weapon was recovered, Guglielmi said.

Police initially believed Stagger was wanted in connection with the shooting death of 15-year-old Jaylin Ellzey in the 200 block of West 113th Street, but learned later that he was a brother of the suspect, Guglielmi said.

A neighbor said the shooting happened in the driveway of the Stagger’s uncle’s house. He said the uncle works at a police station, and had multiple nephews. The medical examiner’s report showed that Stagger lived a block away.

“This happens. It’s just not supposed to happen on this block,” the neighbor said. “This is the quiet block, the suburb block.”

Horace Mann elementary school, which sits at the end of the block, was briefly placed on lockdown after the shooting, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools said.

The officer involved in the shooting will be placed on desk duty while the Civilian Office of Police Accountability investigates, Alioto said.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

The Latest
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”