Off-duty Chicago cop charged with recklessly firing gun at suburban cop

The Chicago Tribune reports:

A Cook County judge refused to release a Chicago police officer on his own recognizance Tuesday after he was charged with firing five shots at a suburban cop and his companion while under the influence of alcohol during an off-duty incident last year.

"In this climate where citizens are shooting one another, we have to expect and demand more from those who have a badge," Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. said in setting bond at $50,000 for Officer John Gorman. "Those bullets could have gone anywhere. It could have hit a 9-year-old child."

Gorman, a 14-year department veteran, was charged by the state's attorney's office with aggravated discharge of a firearm, a Class 1 felony that brings anywhere from probation to up to 15 years in prison on conviction.

Prosecutors said an off-duty Merrionette Park police officer and a second individual spotted Gorman driving erratically on a Sunday afternoon last November. Gorman, who was driving his personal car and had another off-duty Chicago cop with him, nearly struck a flower vendor standing in the middle of 111th Street, they said

No word yet from the "only police should own handguns crowd" on this story.