Three undercover law enforcement officers were wounded in a shooting in Chicago early Wednesday — hours before President Biden and Mayor Lori Lightfoot met to discuss rampant gun violence in the Windy City, police said.
The officers — two federal agents and a local cop — were driving in an unmarked police vehicle on Chicago’s South Side at around 5:50 a.m. when they were struck by gunfire, police Superintendent David Brown told reporters.
The officers, including two agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, were conducting an undercover operation — and were on their way to an assignment when they were shot.
Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. One of the agents was hit in the hand and the other was struck in the torso, while the local police officer was grazed in the back of the head, Brown said.
Detectives were questioning a “person of interest” in the shooting, a department spokesman said.
It’s unclear if the shooter or shooters knew that the people they were firing at were law enforcement officers.
The three were driving onto an expressway when they were “fired upon from the street,” Brown said, from outside the hospital where the officers were taken.
Hours after the shooting, Biden had a meeting with Lightfoot in suburban Crystal Lake, Illinois — where the Chicago mayor reportedly asked for more federal aid to combat gun violence in the city.
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During their conversation, Biden expressed his “personal support” for the wounded officers and “reiterated his commitment to working with the mayor and leaders in Chicago in the fight against gun violence,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Psaki said the administration was “monitoring the situation in coordination with the Department of Justice and ATF.”
“I will note, in terms of efforts the president has under way to address the rise in violence we’ve seen over the last 18 months, including in Chicago, there are a number of steps that impact Chicago directly,” Psaki said.
The incident of gun violence came after a bloody Fourth of July weekend in the Windy City that saw 100 people shot — including two cops who were wounded while trying to break up a crowd.
“This is a very challenging time to be in law enforcement but they are rising to the challenge of doing all they can. And the work they do is extremely dangerous,” Brown said.
With Post wires