A police watchdog agency on Wednesday released videos showing an exchange of gunfire last month during which two Chicago police officers were shot and a suspected gunman was wounded in Lawndale.
A police watchdog agency on Wednesday released videos showing an exchange of gunfire last month during which two Chicago police officers were shot and the suspected gunman was wounded in Lawndale.
Police said the incident unfolded after officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert shortly after 7 a.m. May 16 in the 1400 block of South Lawndale Avenue. There, they came across a man later identified as 45-year-old Bruce Lua, who they followed at a distance for several blocks while shouting verbal commands at him to stop, the videos show.
Video shows Lua continuing to walk away without responding.
Two officers then got out of their marked squad cars as Lua approached one of the cars in an alley behind the 1500 block of South Lawndale Avenue. One of the officers, who was wearing one of the four body-worn cameras that captured the incident, ordered him to stop and yelled, “Show me your hands!”
“Get your hands out of your pocket,” the officer, with his gun drawn, can be heard telling Lua on the video. “Dude, stop … get your hands up.”
Lua, who continues walking, then appears to pull a gun out a pocket of his white sweatshirt and fires a shot at an officer from point-blank range. Multiple officers then returned fire, hitting him, the video shows.
One video shows an officer fall to the ground as he returns fire. The officer can later be heard saying, “I’m hit, I’m hit.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
Lua also dropped to the ground after he was shot and can be heard groaning, video shows.
“They shootin’ me,” he yells, to which an officer responded, “You shot at us.”
Police said they recovered a gun on the scene.
A 26-year-old officer was struck in the hand, and a 28-year-old officer was hit in the hip and shoulder, according to prosecutors. Both received treatment and were released from the hospital later that day.
Lua, a convicted felon, was awaiting trial for a pending misdemeanor assault case when he shot at the police.
Two days after the shooting, Lua was ordered held on $10 million bail for attempted murder, aggravated battery and unlawful use of a weapon charges in connection with the exchange of gunfire with cops.
Lua was also ordered held on $100,000 bail for his pending misdemeanor assault case.
