Accused Gunman Charged In West Side Shootout With Chicago Cops

CHICAGO, IL — Chicago police officers were part of a West Side shooting Thursday night that possibly left a man wounded from gunfire and a 9-year-old boy injured from flying glass, according to authorities. Two weapons were recovered from the scene, and no officers were hurt in the shooting, police said in a initial statement Thursday concerning the incident. A 29-year-old Lawndale man was arrested and charged as the gunman, although investigators are still trying to sort out all the details of the shooting.

According to police, the shooting happened at about 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, of the 4200 block of West Madison Street in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. Officers witnessed an argument outside a store as it eventually turned into a confrontation involving gunply, police said. After taking tactical positions, officers fired multiple rounds at the gunman, but he wasn't wounded in the exhange.

Christopher Younger Jr. was apprehended by police, and he was charged with two counts of aggravated assault of aggravated assault against a police officer with a firearm, two counts of unlawful use of a firearm by a felon and three counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle. All those counts were felonies, and Younger also faces three counts of misdemeanor criminal damage to property. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for the West Side and Chicago — or other neighborhoods. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

Younger was ordered held on $1 million bail, and his next court date is Sept. 7. Before the shooting, Younger had been out on bail on a previous drug case, according to DNAinfo.

Later in the evening, a man with a gunshot wound to his lower body arrived at a local hospital in stable condition, police said. Investigators believe the man was wounded by shots fired either during the argument that escalated into the shooting or the police-involved exchange that followed.

A boy, 9, also was injured by glass shrapnel caused when bullets hit a nearby vehicle at the scene, police said. While the preliminary assessment by police is that the shots that hit the vehicle were fired during the initial shooting, investigators haven't found any evidence that the boy — or anyone else, including the man wounded in the lower body — was hurt by any shots fired by officers.

The Independent Police Review Authority also is conducting a comprehensive use of force investigation concerning the officers' actions in the incident. The officers involved in the shooting will be placed on routine administrative duties for 30 days, per Chicago Police Department policy.

FIRST PHOTO: Christopher Younger Jr., 29 (Photo via the Cook County Sheriff's Office)

SECOND PHOTO: A gun is marked as evidence at the scene of a Chicago police-involved shooting Thursday, Aug. 31, on the West Side. (Photo via the Chicago Police Department)

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