By Jeff Long
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — After a lone arson investigator was shot early Sunday as he checked an alley where a Molotov cocktail had been tossed against a house, the Chicago Fire Department will change its policy and have investigators work in pairs, the fire commissioner said.
The incident was the first time that a firefighter had been shot and wounded since about 1968, said Fire Commissioner Raymond Orozco. Paramedics have been shot at over the years, but department officials could not recall any being hit.
The 18-year department veteran, Donald Kox, was in an alley behind a home in the 2900 block of East 80th Place at about 4:35 a.m., working in uniform, when he was shot in the side and had to call for help on his radio.
He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and was in serious but stable condition Sunday afternoon, Orozco said. The investigator, 45, had been working arson cases for three years.
“Our greatest concern is for his speedy recovery,” Orozco said, adding that the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
Police are investigating, but said no arrests have been made. Neither police nor Orozco could say whether the investigator was targeted.
“He did call on the radio, gave his location, and said he’d been shot,” Orozco said.
The Molotov cocktail was thrown at a window of a 2 1/2-story home at about 3:30 a.m., but it bounced off a storm window and burned itself out in the alley, said Orozco and a resident of the home, Brenda Dean.
Dean, 45, lives there with her 71-year-old mother, five children and a grandchild. She had no idea who would try to start a fire, but said the neighborhood has been rocked in recent weeks by seemingly random gang violence.
She and her mother “don’t have enemies,” Dean said. “There’s been a gang rivalry going on for about a month. There’s been shooting around here for almost a month. Every day. Every day.
“That’s why you can’t let the kids out. You can’t sit on your porch. It’s scary, not knowing every day if you’re going to get shot walking down the street,” she said.
Dean said there had been shooting before the Molotov cocktail was thrown. And later she heard four or five shots when the arson investigator was wounded. An ambulance quickly arrived, she said.
“He was down on the ground,” Dean said. “He looked like he was in a lot of pain. He didn’t know where he was shot at. He was trying to tell them it was a burning sensation.
“This poor man, all he was doing was investigating,” Dean said. “He was in uniform. I feel for him and his family.”