Charges filed in 2022 road rage shooting that injured Chicago police officer

CHICAGO - A Waukegan man was charged with attempted murder nearly three years after a road rage shooting that left a former probationary Chicago police officer wounded.

Illovani Gomez, 35, was arrested Tuesday in Waukegan, according to Chicago police. He was charged with two counts of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, all felonies.

Chicago road rage shooting

The backstory:

Gomez was accused of opening fire on the woman during a confrontation on Sept. 20, 2022, near the intersection of Elston and Addison avenues in the Irving Park neighborhood.

The former officer, who was off-duty at the time of the shooting, was hospitalized at Illinois Masonic Medical Center to be treated for a gunshot wound to the face.

Police said the confrontation began around 3 p.m. when the off-duty officer, driving a 2023 Range Rover, was rear-ended by a white GMC Yukon near Addison and Kedzie. The Yukon reversed, fled west, and struck the officer’s vehicle again several blocks away before someone inside opened fire. Surveillance video captured the officer stumbling to a nearby Jiffy Lube after being shot.

The video below is from a previous FOX 32 report.

Surveillance video shows road rage shooting of off-duty Chicago cop

Surveillance video of the shooting shows the officer left her SUV in the street and stumbled to a nearby Jiffy Lube service station after a gunman popped out of the Yukon’s rear passenger window and shot her.

The chaotic aftermath included a police pursuit of the suspect’s SUV, which was later found abandoned on the Northwest Side. Another officer fired shots at the fleeing vehicle after it struck two police cars, prompting an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

At the time of the shooting, the wounded officer had recently graduated from the police academy but had been stripped of her powers days earlier after reportedly failing a drug test.

What's next:

Gomez is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a detention hearing.