Chicago police say 10-year-old boy fired shot at them during standoff; he allegedly lashed out when mom asked him to clean up — then grabbed gun from her purse

Chicago police say a 10-year-old boy fired a shot at them during standoff Monday in which no one was hurt, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, adding that the child allegedly lashed out when his mother asked him to clean up around the house — and then grabbed a gun from her purse.

What are the details?

Officers responded about 11:20 a.m. to the home in the 9800 block of South Charles Street in the neighborhood of Beverly, the paper said. Beverly is on the far south side of the city.

Police learned the boy was experiencing “mental distress" and had fired shots inside the home, the Sun-Times reported.

More from the paper:

The boy stepped out on a porch and pointed a gun at the responding officers and at his own head, Chicago Police Deputy Chief Migdalia Bulnes told reporters near the scene. He then fired a single gunshot, sending officers ducking for cover.

Officers tried to de-escalate the situation by firing bean bag rounds at the home without striking the boy, but “it was too quick for them to bring a negotiator out,” Bulnes said. After going back inside and then returning to the porch, the boy pointed the gun at his head again.

Officers fired a chemical at the porch, scaring the boy. He threw the gun down and was then detained without incident. He was taken to a hospital for observation.

Police said non-lethal methods were used to try to subdue the boy because of his age and state of mind, WLS-TV reported.

“It really puts your training into perspective,” Bulnes told the Sun-Times of the police response. “It’s a little bit more delicate because he’s 10 years old, and he’s in distress. And we know that. He’s a child, so that’s what’s in our mind when we have discussions of what’s the next step.”

'He's just a typical bad boy'

Thurston Daniels, the boy’s grandfather, told the paper his grandson lashed out when his mother asked him to clean up around the house and grabbed a gun from her purse.

Daniels added to the Sun-Times that the boy had thrown tantrums in the past — but nothing that escalated to this point.

“He’s just a typical bad boy,” Daniels also told the paper.

Jennifer Mitchell, a neighbor who's lived on the block for decades, told the Sun-Times that the boy’s mother had received calls from his school about him causing “trouble” there.

What else happened?

Alderman Matt O’Shea added to the paper that he believes two family members were in the home at the time of the standoff, one of whom was the boy's mother. O'Shea added to WLS-TV that the gun was legally possessed but not secured.

Neighbors described staying away from windows and hiding behind walls in their homes during the standoff, the Sun-Times said.

“At the first shot, we couldn’t figure out what was going on,” Mitchell recalled to the paper. “And then I saw the SWAT team come out with the mother and a little boy. And I said, 'Wait a minute — there’s another child supposed to be in there.'”

Another neighbor, who asked the Sun-Times not to identify her for safety reasons, said she heard officers pleading with the boy.

“They were asking the boy to drop the gun, saying, 'Please don’t do this, we’re here to help you,'” the woman added to the paper.

Lynette Peterson told the Sun-Times she heard the boy shout back to officers that he was going to harm himself: “I was like, 'Oh my God, this is not good.'"

Crystal Lindsey told WLS she met the boy and his brother this summer and that "they have been nothing but kind. It's really important for people to understand why anyone, a child, would act out. There may be a trigger or something that happened previously."

10-year-old shoots at CPD during Beverly SWAT standoff: policeyoutu.be

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