Shots Fired At Chicago Police Near UIC Library
CHICAGO (CBS) -- For the seventh time in the past two weeks, police came under fire in Chicago, when someone fired shots at officers near the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
A suspect was in custody Thursday morning, and police said they have recovered a weapon.
Police said officers were responding to a call of a person with a gun around 2 a.m. near Taylor and Miller streets, less than a block from the UIC Library, when someone fired shots at the officers.
No one was hurt, and the offender was quickly apprehended, police said. A weapon was recovered at the scene.
UIC junior Alex Alderman said he heard the shots.
"I really didn't think much of it. I just went back to sleep," he said. "I'm certainly surprised it happened across the street from me, and on the way to the library. So it's kind of a real shock. I mean, you read about the crime reports. It's like a block or to away, or a lot farther."
The UIC Library was open at the time. It has been open 24 hours a day for the past couple weeks because of final exams at UIC.
"It definitely makes me nervous. You wouldn't think something like this would happen, but on the other hand we have UIC police here, we have Chicago police. So overall I definitely feel really safe," junior Aleksey Razin said.
A witness said the suspect appeared to be intoxicated.
Chicago police said there have been at least six other incidents of someone firing shots at officers in the past two weeks.
The other six incidents happened:
• on Nov. 24, at 75th Street and Evans Avenue, as police were chasing suspects in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood;
• on Nov. 24, near Harrison Street and Central Park Avenue, when police shot and killed a man who had just shot two people, one fatally, in front of officers on patrol;
• on Nov. 28, when four people were arrested after a passenger in a car fired shots at federal and state law enforcement officers while an FBI-police task force was conducting an investigation;
• on Nov. 28, when a police officer shot and killed a man suspected of shooting his pregnant girlfriend, after the suspect allegedly opened fire on officers in the 4600 block of West Adams Street;
• on Dec. 2, when three men were arrested after a standoff with a Chicago police SWAT team, after at least one of them shot at a police commander in the 8800 block of South Saginaw Avenue;
• and on Dec. 6, when a person was taken into custody after someone fired shots at officers in the 1100 block of West 86th Street.
