CHICAGO – A high-ranking member of the Chicago Police force was shot to death during an impromptu confrontation with a felon in the Chicago downtown Thompson Building Tuesday afternoon.
Often referred to as the state's "northern Capitol" where several statewide officials' Chicago offices are located, 18th District Commander Paul Bauer was shot multiple times while pursuing a suspect after an alleged robbery at a nearby store.
The Sun-Times reports the shooter is expected to be charged in the next 36 hours. It also says:
Bauer, the commander of the Near North District, was shot multiple times about 2 p.m. while assisting a tactical team in the 100 block of West Randolph […]
Bauer, 53, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The shooter is in custody and the weapon was recovered, Johnson said. The suspect, who has not been named pending charges, is a 44-year-old man from the South Side with a felony record going back to 1998, according to court records and police sources.
A witness told the Chicago Sun-Times what he saw -
Dan Ryan was chatting with an acquaintance outside the Thompson Center entrance when he saw a man bolting out of a store on Clark Street and a few people chasing after him.
“I thought he had swiped a purse or something,” Ryan said.
The person ran down a stairwell at the Thompson Center, and that’s when Ryan heard the shots.
“By the second gunshot, I was running. It was like a movie. Everybody was scrambling like it was a terrorist attack,” Ryan said.
More on the report HERE.
A good police officer died yesterday. He was shot and killed by a career criminal with convictions dating back two decades.
In a state other than Illinois the suspected murderer would have been behind bars yesterday. But Illinois practices catch and release justice in which convicted criminals rarely serve complete sentences and are turned loose to stalk and commit crimes again.
So much for the gun free zone RAHM