SWAT standoff ends on West Side after 3rd Chicago police officer is shot in a weekEmmanuel Camarilloon March 20, 2021 at 7:30 pm

The wounded officer was hit in the hand and another was hospitalized for “minor distress,” officials said.

A Chicago police SWAT team arrested a gunman suspected of shooting a police officer Saturday afternoon in Austin on the West Side — the third department member wounded in a week.

Officers were investigating reports of gunfire about 11:25 a.m. near La Crosse and Maypole avenues when someone fired shots at them, according to Chicago police.

When more units arrived to search for the shooter, the gunman fired again, striking an officer on the hand, police said.

She was taken in a squad car to Mount Sinai Hospital, police said. Her wound was not considered life-threatening.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Officers returned fire but did not hit the suspected gunman, who then holed up inside a building in the 200 block of North La Crosse Avenue, police said.

A SWAT team was called to the scene and the suspected gunman was taken into custody by 2:20 p.m., according to CPD spokesman Tom Ahern.

The suspect surrendered himself, according to Chicago Police Supt. David Brown. A gun was recovered at the scene, police said.

Another officer was hospitalized for “minor distress,” according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Before the arrest, dozens of squad cars and seven firetrucks blocked off the area as officers could be seen escorting two people away from the scene in handcuffs. Brown later described them as possible witnesses who were being questioned.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The officer who was shot is the third from the police department to suffer a gunshot wound in a week. Brown said she was in “good spirits” but still experiencing a lot of pain.

On Monday, an off-duty officer was ambushed by two gunmen at a red light in Calumet Heights on the South Side. And last Sunday, an on-duty Chicago police sergeant was shot while standing in the parking lot of the Gresham District police station, 7808 S. Halsted St.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

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