Off Duty Shooting

Cop OK, suspect turns up wounded later:

• An off-duty Chicago Police officer exchanged gunfire with a man in the West Ridge neighborhood early Wednesday on the North Side.

  The shooting happened about 1:10 a.m. when an off-duty officer exchanged gunfire with a man in the 2800 block of West Devon Avenue, police said.

  The officer heard shots in the area and investigated. A man with a gun approached and pointed the weapon at the officer, who responded by firing shots at him, according to a police News Affairs statement.

  The man then fled in a sport-utility vehicle in an unidentified direction, the statement said.

  Initially, police said nobody was struck but a man later arrived at Swedish Covenant Hospital and told emergency personnel he was shot early Monday near North Mozart Street and West Devon Avenue -- about a block west of the police exchange, police said. The injuries were described as non-life-threatening.

Both the Sun Times link (above) and the BreakingNews.com versions share the typical troll comments about the entire incident. But a slight majority actually back the police for taking action off-duty. And when you get down to the brass tacks, the only thing required of the off-duty cop in this situation is make a call to 911, "Hey, I heard shots around such-and-such an address." That's a police action.

But they went a step further and tried to discover if someone was hurt, someone needed medical attention, some victim was seeking of assistance of any sort, and maybe the off-duty would be able to provide some description of a person or vehicle fleeing the scene. We like to think most cops would do the same thing. But after reading some of the comments, sane people should be surprised each and every day we're even willing to make that step beyond a phone call.