CHICAGO — A man riding a four-wheeler intentionally ran over a security guard near the Chicago Fire TV film set on Thursday evening, according to witnesses and a Chicago Police Department report.
Witnesses said four or five men on ATVs repeatedly tried to enter the set as the cast and crew worked on an empty lot across from the Chicago Fire Department Academy in the 500 block of West Taylor around 5:30 p.m.
Security officers stopped the cyclists from entering several times, but one of the riders “became enraged at security for not being allowed on set and purposely accelerated” the ATV, striking a 60-year-old male security officer, a CPD crash report said.
The rider either fell or was pulled from the Yamaha 450R and dropped a handgun at the scene, a CPD spokesperson said. The rider abandoned his four-wheeler, jumped onto one of the other ATVs, and all of the bikes left the area. Neither police nor witnesses who spoke with CWBChicago reported any shots fired.
EMS transported the injured security officer to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening, a Chicago police spokesperson said. According to the traffic crash report, he suffered a laceration to his left leg and was in good condition.
Unlike other recent incidents involving Chicago Fire filming locations, a crew member who spoke with CWBChicago on Thursday felt that the bikers were intentionally targeting the production, which was supposed to be the last day of filming for the season.
Last September, a gunman opened fire across the street from a funeral home where the series was filming in the 5900 block of West Madison.
No injuries were reported at that time. A few days later, though, a man was shot and critically injured at the same intersection as the Chicago Fire crew continued working outside A.A. Rayner and Son’s Funeral Home, 5911 West Madison.
Earlier in the summer, bullets from a rolling gun battle flew into the Cinespace Chicago Film Studios on the West Side and damaged trailers used by the Chicago Med television series. No injuries were reported, and police did not believe the show or the studio were the intended targets.
In the South Loop last August, a man reportedly lit an object and threw it toward the set where Justified was filming. Police said the “object did not explode and no injuries were reported.”
Days later, top Chicago police executives ordered several neighborhood patrol districts to send some of their cars to secure movie sets across the city, CWBChicago reported. At the time, a CPD source said the district resources were being diverted mainly because the production companies had been unable to find enough off-duty cops to handle the work.
The city requires “police supervision” for some filming activities. That supervision usually comes through a city program that lets studios hire uniformed cops on their days off. But, the source said, fewer cops are volunteering, putting productions in a bind.
Chicago’s film community was stunned one year ago after the director of the Chicago Film Office was brutally beaten by three men who robbed him outside his home.
Police said the incident began when Kwame Amoaku found the offenders rummaging through his car and confronted them around 7:46 a.m. on March 30, 2022. The men started beating him with “various objects,” then fled in a vehicle, a CPD spokesperson said.
But they returned to the scene moments later to beat and rob Amoaku before leaving a second time.
Chicago police later released a series of videos, including footage that showed the attack unfolding and the suspects shopping at North Riverside Park Mall.
More than a year later, no arrests have been announced.
Amoaku resigned in July to become New York City’s deputy film commissioner.