Man infiltrated SWAT training, shot by police

CHICAGO — A man climbed five stories of a fire escape to infiltrate a Chicago police facility Monday while officers were undergoing a SWAT training exercise and grabbed at least two guns before he was shot and wounded by police, the chief said.

Police Superintendent David Brown said the suspect was taken to the hospital with injuries not considered to be lifethreatening. One officer was taken to the hospital with a sprained ankle.

Brown said the suspect was seen on video leaving the facility and then returning to infiltrate it. He asked where to go to retrieve personal property at the facility in Homan Square on Chicago’s West Side. Then he came back to the building and climbed the fire escape to the fifth floor, where a door had been propped open for ventilation because there are no windows on that floor.

Brown said it has not been determined if the man went to the building to retrieve property, saying that the man had an extensive record. It wasn’t immediately clear if property taken from the man was stored in the building.

He had no other information about the man, other than to say he was a resident of Waukegan, a suburb about 42 miles north of Chicago.

Brown said investigators believe the man grabbed at least two guns that were on a table during the training exercise and pointed them at officers. He said the guns did not have live ammunition in them, adding that they were either empty or contained munitions such as pellets that are used for training exercises because they sting when they strike a person but do not cause serious injury or death. He said he did not know if the man attempted to shoot officers with the guns.

He said the investigation will reveal what officers in the room knew about the guns the suspect took.

Brown speculated on what officers in the training room saw as the man entered the room.

“These were guns that were being watched,” he said. “Obviously, someone coming from a stairwell outside startled everyone. Who is this person? Is this person associated with the training? We do have live actors sometimes who come in plainclothes.”

He also said that it was likely the officers said something to the man when they spotted him, but that, “We just don’t know what the offender said.”

He said most of those taking part in the training were tactical officers assigned to specialized units but that a few of them were uniformed officers assigned to City Hall or to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home.

The officer was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in stable condition with the ankle injury, according to the Chicago Fire Department. He was not shot, Brown said.