By Paige Fry and Stephanie Casanova
Source Chicago Tribune
An off-duty Chicago police officer was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries after being shot in the face in the Irving Park neighborhood Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
At 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, the female officer was shot during a road rage incident at Addison Street and Elston Avenue, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference.
She was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said Larry Merritt, spokesperson for the Chicago Fire Department.
Brown said he spoke with the officer. She is talking and did not lose consciousness.
The officer who was shot has non-life threatening injuries, Brown said.
“Thank God,” he said.
The shooter escaped in a black SUV, Brown said. No arrests have been made.
The gunman fired shots from inside their vehicle, Brown said.
No one else was in the car with the officer when she was shot, Brown said. Police don’t know if there was more than one person in the shooter’s vehicle, he said.
Preliminary information indicates the officer was rear-ended before she was shot, Brown said.
He said officers have a license plate number of the vehicle that the suspected shooter was in, but they do not plan to release the plate number yet.
Police later tried to stop a dark-colored vehicle in the 5000 block of West Lawrence Avenue in connection to the shooting, the Chicago Police Department said in a media notification.
The suspect’s vehicle struck two police squad cars and one officer discharged their gun, police said. No one was struck, no injuries were reported and the driver of the vehicle escaped, police said.
Northeastern Illinois University Police later found the vehicle unoccupied in the 5800 block of North Drake Avenue, police said.
The off-duty officer is a probationary police officer, meaning she’s a sworn member who’s been a CPD officer for less than a year, Brown said.
Brown said there is no evidence that the off-duty officer returned fire or displayed a weapon.
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