“I am God!” the big man screamed out the window of an apartment in the 1300 block of South Lawndale Avenue. “I am the man!” Then he started singing. What the Chicago Police Department calls a “domestic disturbance.
” A particularly dangerous situation for police to walk into, accounting for nearly a quarter of the murders in Chicago. Officer Angelo Wells Jr. and his partner had just come off a call and were leaving the District 10 station.
They headed to the scene. Four more officers arrived. It was just after 3 a.
m., Aug. 5, 2020.
“Why don’t you come down and talk to us?” Wells called up, framing the 33-year-old man in his flashlight beam. The man, on PCP, stopped singing, and started spitting at them. “Are you guys going to come up and help me?” a woman yelled from somewhere inside the apartment.
A Chicago Fire Department ambulance arrived. Wells walked over to brief the paramedics on the situation. Five shots, in quick succession.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Wells took cover behind the ambulance. “Get down,” he yelled, “Get out.
Go go go.” So the ambulance did, toward Douglas, leaving Wells exposed. Thirteen more shots were squeezed off.
In two years on the force, Wells had previously been exposed to gunfire six times. The seventh proved unlucky — as he ran for cover, one bullet entered his right thigh and shattered his femur. “I’m hit,” Wells shouted.
Making him one of the 2,587 Chicagoans shot but not killed that year — including 10 police offi.
