CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago and Amtrak police are investigating the police shooting of a murder suspect Tuesday evening at Union Station.
Amtrak said its police department was notified by law enforcement in California that a murder suspect with other multiple pending warrants was on a train heading to Chicago. Around 5 p.m., officers were waiting on the platform when the suspect arrived.
According to Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari, who spoke Tuesday night at at a news conference at the station, When the suspect saw the uniformed officers on the platform, he took off running, injuring an Amtrak employee and then opening fire on the officers.
He’s running towards us, he’s running towards us, duck, cover,” an officer radioed.
One of the Amtrak officers returned fire and struck the man, Magliari said.
The suspect was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in traumatic arrest, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt. He later died from a gunshot wound to the chest, Chicago police said.
The suspect’s weapon was recovered, police said.
The Amtrak employee suffered minor injuries, and an officer also was taken to the hospital for evaluation, Magliari said.
Another man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was in good condition with lacerations to the face, police said. Two other men, with unknown injuries, were also transported to Rush University Medical Center, where they were stabilized.
Magliari could not say whether officers had cleared the platform before the train pulled up. Several witnesses who had been waiting for their trains in the waiting area adjacent to the platforms said they rushed out of the station to the street after seeing other bystanders and Amtrak employees running from the platforms, shouting “active shooter” and “get out.”
Train passenger Alicia Gainey told the Sun-Times she had been waiting for a train to Elkhart, Ind., when she heard people running inside the station shouting.
As she queued up to board her train about an hour after the shooting, Gainey, said she was tired of gun violence.
“It’s crazy. This happens everywhere, all the time,” she said.
Stephanie Bommarito, of Rochester Hills, Michigan, was in the restroom when she got a string of harried texts from her husband, Philip.
“It was awful,” she said. “(The texts said) ‘Get out … active shooter,’ and I’m trying to get out of the stall,” said Bommarito, whose husband had left the train station with their two children, Mia, 9, and Leo, 7.
She said people still were walking casually into the station as she rushed out the doors, and heard nothing on the public address warning that there had been a shooting inside. She met her family on the street, and they waited outside for an all-clear announcement, and wound up missing their 5:50 p.m. train to Detroit.
“I was just worried about my kids and what kind of trauma they might be experiencing,” Stephanie Bommarito said of the harrowing final hours of a family trip to the city. “My daughter said ‘This would be a good thing to bring up at show-and-tell,’ and I said, ‘I don’t think the fourth grade needs to hear about this. Show them your I Love Chicago key chain.’”
Train traffic was temporarily halted because of “ongoing police activity,” but has resumed moving with residual delays as of 6:30 p.m., according to an Amtrak Alerts Twitter account.
No other details from authorities were immediately available.
Amtrak and the Chicago Police Department are investigating the incident jointly.
(WBBM Newsradio and the Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times contributed to this copy.)
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