A man fatally wounded during a shootout with Chicago police was identified Tuesday as a gang member and convicted felon with more than 40 arrests.
Lamar Harris, 29, was killed late Monday after he fired on several police officers investigating alleged drug activity in Chicago’s Homan Square neighborhood on the city’s west side, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Three officers were wounded.
Officers at the scene with first aid kits and bandages were able to apply preliminary care to Harris while they waited for Chicago Fire Department emergency crews, Guglielmi said.
“The officers were trained by CPD in LEMART — Law Enforcement Medical AND Rescue Training — which is designed to render life-saving aid following tactical and emergency situations,” he said in a statement.
The shootout occurred after officers observed a man and a woman acting suspiciously and decided to investigate, Guglielmi said. The pair fled, the officers gave chase and the man opened fire, hitting three of them multiple times. One of the officers returned fire, fatally injuring Harris.
One officer was shot in the back, another in the foot and a third in the chest, authorities said, adding his body armor likely deflected the bullet.
A gun used by the dead suspect was recovered at the scene, authorities said.
In a statement, police officials said Harris has 43 arrests on his record, 11 of them felonies. He was convicted of five felony charges, the latest being aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and resisting a peace officer, causing injury, in January 2012.
The woman was arrested Monday night but has not been charged, Guglielmi said.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Interim Police Superintendent John Escalante visited the officers and their families at the hospital. The shooting follows the mortal wounding of an undercover narcotics officer in Maryland who was shot by a colleague as a gunman attacked a police station Sunday night.
Police said in a statement that the city’s Independent Police Review Authorities will investigate the shooting. The officers involved will be put on administrative duties for 30 days.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Good work Chicago PD, thank you for your courage!
43 arrests and 11 were felonies why was he not in jail ????
This thug could have been another one of obamas son….
Obama doesn’t have a son in reality! I think this is your attempt at humor but it stinks. Travon Martin was murdered and there has been no justice for taking his life. The White man’s way of willfully doing wrong towards others and then uses hollow excuses to justify their disdainful acts. Your turn is coming sooner than you think! The Revolution won’t be televised. It will be going down in living color! Death to crackers and rednecks!
He was black is why.
Soooo….chicago is a gun free city. How could the punk possibly get a gun in chicago.
Gun control only aids the crooks who commit the crimes on unarmed citizens.
First, good for the cops for making a righteous shoot.
Second, applause for the poster who mentioned that Chicago, having some of the strictest gun-control legislation in the country, if not THE most restrictive(and Unconstitutional, btw), is beset by hundreds of murders by armed thugs every single year, proving his point:
“An armed society is a polite society.”
Or in the words of one Cesare Beccaria, an Italian author whose words were translated and put in Jefferson’s “Commonplace” book:
“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty… and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer?
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree.”
— Cesare Beccaria, (1735-1794) [Bonesana, Marchese di] Italian nobleman, criminologist, and penal reformer
Source: Dei delitti e delle pene, [On Crimes and Punishments] ch.38 (1764)
Translation is as quoted by Thomas Jefferson in his Commonplace Book.