Things are so tough in Chicago that the SWAT team took fire during an armed standoff with a 10-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. Mom had asked him to “clean up around the house.” Apparently, he didn’t want to do that. The good news is nobody was shot and nobody seriously harmed, especially the troubled child. Police did have to pepper spray him, though. They took him to the ER afterward and authorities are still trying to figure out if they should charge him.
Armed standoff with a twist
Chicago has more than their fair share of armed standoff incidents. The thing that was totally twisted about this one is that it was with a 10-year-old boy. “He’s just a typical bad boy,” Grandfather Thurston Daniels relates.
He’s seen the boy throw some tantrums before but this was a record. It all started when “his mother asked him to clean up around the house.” That’s when he “grabbed a gun from her purse.”
Mom didn’t mess around, she called the cops. Dispatch put it out as a “child in distress” call. They weren’t expecting a standoff. On Monday, July 24, officers arrived at “a home in the 9800 block of South Charles Street around 11:20 a.m.”
A 10-year-old boy was taken into custody Monday after allegedly firing shots at Chicago police officers on the city's South Side. https://t.co/hY1u5BrO8t
— FOX 32 News (@fox32news) July 24, 2023
The armed boy was waiting for them. “When officers approached the house, they found the boy standing on the porch and pointing a gun at them.” Chicago Police Deputy Chief Migdalia Bulnes explained that’s a really tense situation but they’re trained for things like that.
Bulnes held a press conference that afternoon explaining, “he’s a child, so that’s what’s in our mind.” They evaluate everything based on “his age and the distress he’s in.” That, Bulnes adds is “very important for any incident but this one in particular because it was very delicate.”
The standoff didn’t last long but was complicated by the fact the young gunman was using live rounds while SWAT was limited to beanbags and other “less-lethal” weaponry. They fired some beanbags off in his general direction and that made things worse.
Battle on the porch
When officers first approached the home, “they found the boy standing on the porch and pointing a gun at them.” Whoa, slow down there kid, that’s not a good thing to do they warned. He pointed it at his own head instead. “No, no, no… you don’t want to do that either,” they soothed, trying to keep the standoff from getting deadly.
“He then fired a single gunshot, sending officers ducking for cover.” There wasn’t any time for a negotiator so they had to wing it. That’s when they opened up with bean bags. He went back inside.
“After going back inside and then returning to the porch, the boy pointed the gun at his head again.” This time, “a chemical” was used. “He threw the gun down and was then detained without incident,” ending the standoff.
Chicago police say 10-year-old boy fired shot at them during standoff; he allegedly lashed out when mom asked him to clean up — then grabbed gun from her purse https://t.co/UpvLX0NI20
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 26, 2023
During the course of the encounter he fired a total of four rounds at the police, after they fired first with the beanbags. Nobody was injured but the whole neighborhood was placed on lock-down.
Chicago Alderman Matt O’Shea isn’t real happy with the boy’s mother. “We have what I would describe as a happy ending, but people just need to be more careful when you’re going to have weapons in homes.” The weapon was owned legally but not properly secured.
The standoff put the entire neighborhood at risk and cost a fortune in resources but prosecutors aren’t real thrilled about charging a 10-year-old, so haven’t decided how to handle that yet. “Boys will be boys,” as they say. Chicago is simply a really rough city. Thanks to Democrat leadership.
