Good Guy with a Gun #52: Chicago, IL
Original incident: December 23, 2023. Four-against-one odds are evened out when the one is a concealed-carry license holder... not that news organizations notice much.
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So many defensive gun uses (DGUs) leave almost no imprint in any kind of media — even when it involves someone dying.
Case in point: CWB Chicago is the sole news source for this story.
A little before 5 PM on a Saturday afternoon in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago, a 68-year-old man was in an alley behind the 1700 block of West Cortez street. It doesn’t look like a bad neighborhood on Google Maps, but I’m no local.
Four young armed men approached him and tried to rob him.
But this man was a CCL holder. He fired his weapon, striking one of the men in the chest and killing him. That man was 19 years old. The other three ran from the scene.
That’s pretty much all we know from news sources. There is, however, a Facebook page called ChitownCrimechasers-CCC that had a bit more detail: I don’t know anything about them, but I don’t have reason to disbelieve them, either.
They claim that the Cook County Medical Examiner identified the dead criminal as Philip Snowton, AKA PJ. I can’t find anything about him — not so much as an obituary — on the open web. ChitownCrimechasers-CCC also says that the gunshot wound was “to the chest & elbow.”
Chicago PD originally called the 19-year-old a “victim” and the shooter the “offender,” but the shooter remained on the scene and said he shot in self-defense. I can see no sign that the shooter was charged.
Sources
Most sources are linked above. In addition, Brandon Curtis at Concealed Nation also covered the story.
That thing that never happens, happens every day.
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