Around 3:33 a.m. an armed Chicago thug wearing a ski mask made a huge mistake and tried to rob three men who were standing near a vehicle in the 2600 block of West Devon Avenue.
The thug approached the men brandishing a handgun and demanded their property, Chicago police said. But one of the men was a licensed concealed carry holder. The 26-year-old pulled out his gun and opened fire on the thug.
He hit the robber several times in the chest while one bullet grazed his head. The thug ran bleeding into a nearby alley where police found him.
The cops called an ambulance to treat the robber and then took him to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston in critical condition.
Chicago police said they found a handgun in a trash can near the injured robber.
The would-be victims, ages 26, 33, and 31, were not injured and were not charged.
According to The Chicago Sun-Times, the July 4th holiday was another bloody one in the city of big shoulders with 73 people shot, 11 fatally:
The long July Fourth weekend in Chicago began with four men shot in Chicago Lawn and ended with five people shot and a man beaten to death in an attack in Englewood.
In between, a 15-year-old girl and her mother were killed, a 5-year-old girl was grazed by a bullet and an 85-year-old man was shot during a robbery.
Boys 14 and 15 were also among the wounded.
At least 73 people were shot in the city during the four-day weekend and 11 of them died, a slightly higher toll than last year when the holiday lasted only three days, according to data kept by the Sun-Times.
The last time the holiday spanned four days was in 2019, and the count was 68 people shot, five of them fatally.
In 2017, when the holiday covered Saturday through Tuesday like this year, more than 100 people were shot in one of the bloodiest July Fourth weekends in the city’s recent history.
A concealed carry holder shot a masked man during a robbery attempt on the Far North Side this morning.https://t.co/45mg8LxvSf
— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) July 5, 2023
Bonus: this one comes with two crime scenes! pic.twitter.com/toE9r4RLz9
— Andy Frye (@SportyFrye) July 5, 2023