Person shot by police after breaking into Homan Square CPD site through fire escape, grabbing guns and pointing them at cops, officials say

A man was shot by police Monday after he climbed a fire escape to enter a Chicago police facility in North Lawndale, grabbed guns he found on a table and aimed them at officers, officials said.

Officers were in the middle of training — using guns loaded with non-lethal rounds — on the fifth floor of the Homan Square facility at 1011 S. Homan Ave. when the man entered through a door propped open for ventilation, police Supt. David Brown told reporters.

He picked up at least two guns from a table, aimed them at officers and was shot as cops in the building scrambled to respond, Brown said. The suspect, a 47-year-old Waukegan man with a lengthy arrest history of auto theft, was expected to survive.

Before the shooting, surveillance video shows the man walk to a security guard shack around 11:30 a.m. and ask where he could retrieve property from inside the building, Brown said.

The guard directed him to the public entrance on the other side of the building. Instead of going there, he walked west and pulled down an exterior fire escape stairwell and climbed up five floors, Brown said.

“We believe that this offender then sees this pretty open training area where there are guns on a table that’s being utilized in the training at various points,” Brown said.

More than two dozen officers were using guns in the training that were modified to use non-lethal pellets instead of bullets. “Live rounds are not in the guns at the time this person retrieves the guns on the table,” Brown said.

When pressed, however, Brown would not clearly say whether the guns picked up by the man had live rounds or dummy rounds.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Officers saw the man grab at least two guns, Brown said. Since the officers were not using live ammunition, they immediately notified others in the building who were armed, he said. “The person, the offender, points those guns at the officers and is fired upon and struck by one of the officers,” Brown said.

The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said. Brown said the injuries weren’t thought to be life-threatening.

An officer suffered a sprained ankle and was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center for treatment, authorities said.

Brown said there was video of the man entering the exterior of the building but not of the shooting inside.

The investigation has been turned over to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which reported its investigators had responded to the shooting scene. A spokeswoman for the oversight agency declined to comment.

Of the 26 people participating in the training, Brown said most of them were members of tactical response teams but three worked on the mayor’s detail.

Brown described the initial confusion of a stranger entering the training.

“Obviously, someone coming in from a stairwell outside startled everyone. Who is this person? Is this person associated with training? Et cetera. We do have live actors who come sometimes in plainclothes,” Brown said.

“First, (they asked) is this person part of the training? They almost immediately determined he wasn’t. Then notifications were made to officers in other parts of the building that immediately responded,” Brown said.

Brown couldn’t say if the man said anything before he was shot, or if he actually had come to the building to retrieve items from the building’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section.

Asked about the security of the Homan Square building, and how a man managed to break inside through an open door, Brown had little to say. “All of that will be obviously something that will be reviewed by COPA during a full and complete investigation,” he said.

After the shooting, officers cordoned off streets and directed traffic around the Homan Square facility, a former Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse. A police spokeswoman urged members of the media not to photograph officers around the facility because they may be working undercover or doing other sensitive work.

The Homan Square compound houses the police department’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section and also serves as a hub for undercover operations and the counterterrorism bureau.

The facility earned a shadowy reputation after the Guardian published a series of stories in 2015 likening it to a CIA “black site” where suspects have allegedly been “disappeared” and subjected to off-the-books questioning and abuse.

The department pushed back on the Guardian’s claims at the time, saying it “abides by all laws, rules and guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at Homan Square or any other CPD facility.”

Still, the department has faced a series of lawsuits over alleged abuse at the facility, and activists have demanded it be closed.