A 42-year-old man is charged with trying to kill three people, including a Chicago Police Department SWAT officer, during an armed standoff and hostage situation at his Albany Park home on Monday.
Daniel Aguirre, 42, is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a detention hearing, where prosecutors are expected to outline the allegations they intend to prove.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a report of a person shot in the 4600 block of North Springfield Avenue and found a 67-year-old woman with a gunshot wound to the face. She was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition, according to police.
Officers soon learned that Aguirre had barricaded himself inside a nearby home with his 42-year-old girlfriend and a 14-year-old girl, according to an officer who responded to the scene. The wounded 67-year-old woman is believed to be the girlfriend’s mother.
For more than an hour, a Chicago 911 calltaker monitored activity inside the home through an open phone line, relaying what they heard to officers outside. At one point, the armed man was heard telling his hostages to find a bullet for him because he expected police to come through the door. The calltaker also reported hearing a woman crying and saying she was bleeding badly. Later, one of the hostages could be heard pleading with the gunman not to shoot through the door and begging him to put down his weapon.
“You guys use caution,” a dispatcher warned officers over the radio. “She’s begging him not to shoot through the door.”
At about 11:44 a.m., as a Chicago Police SWAT team attempted to breach the front door, Aguirre allegedly fired at least one shot through the door, striking a 45-year-old SWAT officer in the abdomen, according to CPD Interim Supt. Fred Waller.
The officer, a 20-year veteran of the department, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he underwent surgery. Waller said the officer’s condition later stabilized.
The standoff continued as Aguirre allegedly turned on the apartment’s natural gas for a short time and continued pointing his weapon at the hostages, according to the calltaker monitoring the open 911 line. Shortly after noon, he began talking about surrendering. About an hour later, he surrendered and released both hostages.
The 42-year-old woman and the 14-year-old girl were taken to Stroger Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Aguirre is charged with three counts of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm at a peace officer, two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, two counts of aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated assault of a peace officer, and aggravated discharge of a firearm into an occupied building.
