Newly released police video shows an armed driver opening his door and firing point-blank at a Chicago police officer after being pulled over in an Englewood alley earlier in June.
As the officer fell back, the driver jumped out of the car, gun raised, and was shot at least twice by other officers on the scene, collapsing on the pavement not far from where the wounded officer knelt, blood dripping down his left arm.
Both the officer and the suspect were seriously wounded in the confrontation June 5 in the 6900 block of South Sangamon Street. The officer was driven to a hospital while other officers tended to the wounds of the suspect, Jerome Halsey, 27, until an ambulance arrived.
It was the third time a law enforcement officer in Chicago had been hit by gunfire in a span of several days. An officer was shot and seriously wounded June 1 while trying to make a traffic stop in the 6100 block of South Paulina Street, about a mile from the June 5 shooting. On June 3, a U.S. marshal and his K-9 dog were shot while serving an arrest warrant on the Northwest Side.
The latest video was released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which said it is still reviewing the incident.
The shooting occurred after three uniformed officers riding in an unmarked vehicle stopped a silver car for a traffic violation at 6916 S. Sangamon St. around 2 p.m., according to COPA.
The officers got out and were walking toward the car when the driver opened his door, raised a gun and fired at an officer just feet from him, according to the video.
The officer fell back toward the police car and the driver got out and appeared to point his gun at the him. Other officers fired and the driver fell to the pavement.
A camera worn by the wounded officer shows him kneeling in the alley, blood running down his arm and pooling on the pavement as another officer keeps telling him, “I got you, bro.”
The officer is helped into a police car and driven to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was listed in serious but stable condition.
Two responding officers began tending to the suspect, who was lying on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back. ”Keep breathing, keep breathing,” one of the officers kept saying while placing compression bandages on his chest.
“What’s his name?” she asks. An officer finds his driver’s license and she starts calling him by his name to keep him awake as paramedics walk up.
He was taken in critical condition to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The suspect was later identified by police as Jerome Halsey, 27. He was charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and aggravated assault.
