Man shot by police officer on Joliet’s near West Side in ‘stable condition’

An officer shot a man multiple times when he pulled out a handgun at a residence near the corner of Nicholson Street and Ingalls Avenue Thursday morning, according to the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force.

Joliet police officials released a statement Thursday that said there was an “officer-involved shooting in the 1200 block of Nicholson Street.”

“The scene was immediately turned over to the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force for investigation,” according to the statement.

According to task force officials’ account of the incident, Joliet police officers were called about 10:17 a.m. to the 1200 block of Nicholson Street for a disturbance.

When the officers arrived, they were “engaged in a conversation” with a man when he “produced a handgun and pointed it at an officer,” officials said.

“The officer then fired shots at this individual striking him multiple times,” officials said.

Officers “made the scene safe” and rendered medical aid to the gunshot victim, officials said. The man was taken to AMITA Health Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet where he underwent surgery and was reportedly in stable condition, officials said.

Two Joliet police officers were taken to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox “consistent with officer-involved incident protocols,” officials said. Those officers were evaluated and released.

“The Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force was activated to take over this investigation,” officials said. “Investigators have met with multiple witnesses whom have corroborated the officers’ accounts of the event and the task force investigation to this point.”

Joliet police said what occurred Thursday was an “isolated incident and there is no threat to the public.”

Joliet Interim Police Chief Dawn Malec would only say the incident was an officer-involved shooting and referred all questions to the task force. Other officers at the scene would not talk about what occurred.

Thursday’s incident is the second Joliet police shooting to have occurred in a little more than a month.

On Dec. 22, Joseph Casten, 19, of Naperville was shot and killed after he aimed what appeared to be a handgun at Joliet police officers who responded to the 800 block of Second Avenue after receiving a report of Casten threatening to shoot people, task force officials said. The gun was later determined to be a BB gun.

The task force is investigating the incident.

On Thursday, Leslie Thompson, who said she lives on the second floor of the Nicholson Street residence where the incident occurred, said she didn’t witness the shooting itself but did see the man who had been reportedly shot on the building’s porch.

Thompson said she saw the man when she went outside the residence after she heard what sounded like four gunshots. Before she heard the gunshots, she said she heard a lot of commotion in the downstairs area.

“I didn’t know what to do at that time, I was in shock,” she said.

She said the man was face down on the porch and bleeding from the back of his right shoulder. She said about three or four officers put something on his wound, as if they were trying to stop the bleeding.

Thompson said she heard one of the officers say, “Get the first-aid kit.”

She said she saw the man’s mother come outside the residence and say, “Y’all didn’t kill him, did y’all?”

Thompson said she didn’t know the man’s name but knew his mother, and that he was about the same age as her son, who is in his late 20s. She said the mother and son lived in the lower level of the residence.

“He was always a nice guy. He’d take out the garbage out, stuff like that,” she said.

Attorney Daniel Kallan, who owns the Nicholson Street property, said he didn’t know anything about the incident as he received two calls from a tenant Thursday morning and assumed it may have been about a heating issue.

Kallan said he later learned from a neighbor of that residence it was about the shooting. He said he went to the scene and saw officers all over the place.

“I was told someone was shot,” Kallan said. “They didn’t tell me who.”

Kallan said the property has two apartments and called Thompson and the other woman who lives on the lower level “ideal tenants.” He said they’ve kept the place immaculate and pay their rent on time.

“I never had a problem with them and they’re very very good people, very very good tenants,” Kallan said.