The thug picked one of the few legally armed citizens in Chicago.
Via Chicago Tribune:
Lester McCarty sat on the porch of his home of 40 years with his wife of 48 years and surveyed the crime scene across the street at Eckersall Park.
Officers walked in and out of the park’s stadium south of 82nd, where a retired deputy police chief had exchanged gunfire with a robber during an exercise session for senior citizens earlier Wednesday morning.
The retired officer, Fred Coffey, 72, was hit in the arm. The robber, 21, suffered a more serious wound in the lower body, according to police. Both were stabilized at hospitals, but police were releasing few other details.
McCarty said a person who appeared shot hobbled out to a waiting car and jumped in. He was later arrested and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The retired officer went to the University of Chicago Medical Center.
“They picked the wrong one,” McCarty said.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson visited Coffey at the hospital and later released a statement saying “gun offenders in Chicago do not discriminate. Their reckless conduct and lack of respect for humanity puts families, public servants and anything that stands in their way at risk.