CHICAGO — A man suspected of shooting and wounding a Chicago police officer on Saturday is the bicyclist suspected of shooting a woman in the back in broad daylight near downtown earlier in the week, police said.
Michael Blackman, 45, managed to get away from both shootings and should be considered armed and dangerous, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted Saturday. Blackman hasn’t been charged in either shooting.
The officer was shot and wounded at around 8:40 a.m. while serving a warrant on the city’s South Side. Police and federal agents were searching the area for the suspect, Guglielmi wrote.
The wounded officer, whose name wasn’t immediately released, underwent surgery and was hospitalized in stable condition. Doctors say the officer lost nearly a third of his blood following a groin injury despite applying a tourniquet, Guglielmi tweeted.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot went to the hospital and met with the officer’s family.
On Friday, police released surveillance video from a bicycle shop showing Blackman at the counter getting a flat tire fixed just minutes before he allegedly rode up to a woman and shot her in the back. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the woman underwent surgery and is expected to survive.
Two other officers were injured in an unrelated case early on Saturday. Police say the officers responded to a call about a man with a gun inside of a South Side restaurant shortly after 4 a.m. After the officers patted down the man and found his gun, he pushed past them, ran outside, got into a vehicle and drove off, dragging both officers before getting away.
The two officers were hospitalized with abrasions, contusions, internal injuries and possible bone fractures. Their names and the name of the driver, if police know it, haven’t been released.