Chicago police told gangs have high-power arms

Weapons may be able to penetrate bulletproof vests

CHICAGO — Chicago police issued a bulletin Monday warning to its officers about gangs armed with high-powered weapons, after three people were shot to death over the weekend — including two attending a memorial for the earlier victim.

Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the three people who were killed in the shootings Sunday were all members of the same street gang.

A shooting early in the day left one man dead, and the two others were killed and eight people were injured in a spray of more than two dozen shots from two guns while attending a makeshift memorial for him. Police suspect they were all shot by members of a rival street gang in the same neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side.

The department beefed up patrols after the morning shooting of 26-yearold Daniel Cordova, who was found dead between parked cars in the Brighton Park neighborhood. The other shooting happened some 12 hours later, about a block away.

Given the very real possibility that the gang war has not played itself out, the department has saturated the same area with officers and tactical teams, Guglielmi said. It also has issued a warning about gunmen with weapons powerful enough to pierce bulletproof vests.

“Given the type of shootings and the incident last week (in which two offers suffered gunshot wounds about two miles away) we have put out an officer safety bulletin,” said Guglielmi.

Guglielmi said the incident in which two officers were shot while sitting in a car does not appear to be connected to the bloody gang feud that erupted Sunday.

Combined, however, they are the latest examples of what they have seen as a greater willingness of arm themselves with weapons most associated with soldiers in battle.

No arrests had been made in either shooting incident as of Monday afternoon.