FBI officials in Chicago have warned officers of the Chicago Police Department that they be under attack from a “cabal” of three dozen street gangs who have pledged to shoot cops on sight if they see a CPD officer with a gun drawn.
Chicago’s ABC affiliate reports that, according to a memo that went out from the FBI’s Chicago office to members of the CPD, “three dozen cold-blooded street gangs” “have formed a pact to ‘shoot on-site any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public,'”
“The ‘situational information report’ from FBI officials in Chicago dated August 26, 2020, states ‘members of these gang factions have been actively searching for, and filming, police officers in performance of their official duties. The purpose of which is to catch on film an officer drawing his/her weapon on any subject and the subsequent ‘shoot on-site’ of said officer, in order to garner national media attention.'”
The FBI does warn that the “Potential Activity Alert” is the result of a discussion with “a contact whose reporting is limited and whose reliability cannot be determined.”
Chicago’s police superintendent, David Brown, told ABC Chicago that the department is taking the threat seriously, regardless, especially after a violent weekend that saw two police officers shot during what should have been a routine traffic stop.
“I think it’s bigger than a suggestion,” he said. “I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year, I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history. So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops.”
“Whether they’re associated with a gang or not we’ve seen increasing violence throughout,” he continued, per NBC Chicago, in a press conference addressing the weekend violence. “Shooting babies and kids with impunity with no regard for innocent bystanders. So I wouldn’t say that it’s associated with a specific, whether it’s a gang or culture, I think overall there’s this sense of lawlessness.”
“We just can’t let our guard down for a moment,” Brown said. “Our strategy is to be prepared for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
In the last month alone, several Chicago police officers have been wounded on the job. In early August, one Chicago police officer was left in critical condition after a shootout with a carjacking suspect on the city’s west side, according to CBS Chicago.
Over the weekend, officers responding to a traffic stop on the city’s west side “broke out the window” of the vehicle after spotting a gun on the floor of the car’s back seat, and after the driver refused to exit the vehicle at the officers’ command. The suspect then opened fire, shooting one officer ” in the shoulder and the other officer in the side,” per a separate NBC Chicago report. A third officer, who happened to be on the scene, shot the suspect.
The officers were two of 55 people shot over the weekend in Chicago. Ten people were killed.