A CTA security contractor who allegedly shot himself and caused a 16-year-old girl to suffer a graze wound when a gun in his jacket pocket fired during a dust-up on a Red Line train near Belmont in 2020 has been sentenced to probation.
Prosecutors said Eric Camp, now 40, and his security partner ran away from the CTA station after the incident, but encountered police on the 3100 block of North Sheffield and reported that they were chasing a girl who had shot Camp.
In fact, the girl remained on the train platform and Camp didn’t tell officers that she was injured, according to cops. He came clean about what happened after officers found his gun in a nearby trash can, according to a CPD report.
Police said Camp and his partner, working for Digby’s Detective & Security Agency, were on a southbound train shortly before 4 a.m.on April 9, 2020, when they confronted the girl who was causing a disturbance.
A “minor physical altercation ensued,” and a gun that Camp allegedly carried in his pocket discharged. The bullet struck Camp in his left leg and the girl suffered a graze wound to her chest, authorities said at the time.
Camp received his license to work as an armed security guard in Illinois about two weeks before the incident, but CTA did not respond when asked if he was supposed to be carrying a gun on the job.
Prosecutors charged Camp with felony aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and misdemeanor possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty to the felony charge in exchange for a sentence of two years probation from Judge Michael Hood, court records show.
The girl was charged with multiple felonies stemming from the confrontation with Camp and an incident one week earlier at the Roosevelt Red Line station.
In that case, the girl and two males demanded a man’s property, hit him in the face, and pushed him to the ground, according to a CPD spokesperson. According to an officer who is familiar with the situation, the victim fell onto the tracks but was able to get back onto the platform.
She was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery of a transit employee, felony robbery, and felony aggravated battery in a public place, but the outcomes of those cases are not publicly available because she was a juvenile at the time.
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