A 10-year-old boy fired a shot at Chicago police officers during a standoff with officers called to the scene after the youth opened fire inside a home, police said.
No one was injured in Monday's shooting and the boy was taken to a hospital for observation, police said.
Officers responded to a home in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood about 11:20 a.m. after learning the boy had fired shots inside the residence and was experiencing “mental distress,” police said in a statement.
Chicago Police Deputy Chief Migdalia Bulnes told reporters at the scene that the boy stepped out onto a porch, pointed a gun at the officers and at his own head before he fired a single gunshot, sending officers ducking for cover.
Bulnes said 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." She said the boy went back inside the house before returning to the porch and pointing the gun at his head again.
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Officials said the gun was not loaded when the child took it to school and no threats were made.
Officers then fired a chemical at the porch, scaring the boy, who threw the gun down and was detained without incident and taken to a hospital for observation, Bulnes said.
She said that for officers the incident "really puts your training into perspective.”
“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," Bulnes said.
The boy’s grandfather, Thurston Daniels, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the youngster had lashed out when his mother asked him to clean up around the house and he grabbed a gun from her purse. He said his grandson had previously thrown tantrums, but nothing that rose to the level of Monday's shooting.
“He’s just a typical bad boy,” Daniels said.
