An off-duty Chicago police officer is facing charges in connection with the shooting and injuring of three people at a bowling alley after a drunken altercation over the use of a restroom turned physical.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, prosecutors said 27-year-old Kyjuan Tate pressed his gun to the head of a man he got into a fistfight with after the victim knocked him to the ground. The altercation happened at the Burr Oak Bowl in Blue Island.
Prosecutors said Tate opened fire once, but the bullet grazed the right ear of the man before striking the chest of another man. The bullet subsequently exited the man’s chest and struck the left hand of the bowling alley’s manager.
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Tate’s charges include attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. He was in custody as of last week Friday and his bail was set at $2 million. He was also relieved of his duties early last week.
The accused man was said to be attending a party at the bowling alley when he got into a dispute with a 46-year-old man who wanted to use the men’s restroom. Tate, who was allegedly “rude” and “visibly intoxicated” at the time, blocked the man from entering the restroom because his sister was inside, prosecutors said.
An argument between the two men subsequently ensued, but prosecutors said the 46-year-old man ultimately left the facility and went outside to warm up his car, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. He, however, re-entered the bowling alley in another attempt to use the restroom. But Tate blocked him once again before they got into another argument.
During the altercation, prosecutors said Tate lifted his top to show he was armed. He later gave his gun to his sister before the man hit him in the face. Tate was later knocked to the ground during the fistfight. But as the man tried leaving the scene of the fight, Tate allegedly reclaimed the gun from his sister and pointed it at the man. Prior to Tate opening fire, the man told investigators he could sense the barrel of the gun was “pressed up to his head behind his right ear.”
The man who sustained the chest injury was transported to the hospital for treatment. And though medics managed to stabilize him two days later, prosecutors said he cannot move his left arm. The manager who was hit in the hand was also treated at the same hospital. The 46-year-old man, on the other hand, lost a portion of his ear and sustained a hearing loss injury.
Meanwhile, an employee at the bowling alley said the facility’s liquor license had been withdrawn in the wake of the investigation into the incident.
