Ex-Riverside Cop Recounts Being Shot In 1987

RIVERSIDE, IL – Former Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel said he was the only officer to have been shot on duty in the history of the local police department.

It occurred about 3 a.m. on an August day in 1987 on Northgate Road, near Northgate Court. He unknowingly interrupted a home invasion.

This week, he released the police radio recording to Patch. It's never been played in public before, he said.

At the time, Weitzel said in an interview, he was going to issue a parking ticket.

On the recording, he could be heard telling a dispatcher the car was on the wrong side of the road. The green Ford LTD had no license plates. Its doors were open and its windows darkened.

Other officers were coming to assist, as is often the case after dark.

On the radio, another officer reported Weitzel had been shot

Weitzel radioed in, "I can't pursue him. I've been shot in the chest."

He then said, "Give me an ambulance here right away."

He reported three men were headed east in the car.

In an interview Friday, Weitzel said he remembered crawling across the street to his squad car after being shot.

The suspect used a hunter rifle to shoot him, with shells of birdshot, he said.

Weitzel, who had been an officer for three years at that point, said he suffered bruised ribs, internal bleeding and a minor eye injury. He was wearing a bulletproof chest. He returned to full duty in a couple of months.

Weitzel, who served as Riverside's chief from 2008 to 2021, said he listened to the recording about a year afterward. But he avoided listening to it for the rest of his career.

"I didn't want to go there," Weitzel said. "To tell you the truth, when I was a patrolman, I didn't want that to define my career. After that incident, people look at you differently. I didn't want to highlight it during the time I was an officer."

Sometimes, he said, people have asked why he did not return fire.

"I was ambushed. I didn't have a chance to. I was injured. I couldn't have returned fire if I wanted to," Weitzel said.

Years later, authorities figured out who the shooter was. But the seven-year statute of limitations had expired. So the man was not charged.

Weitzel worked to end the statute of limitations in such situations. He convinced the late Republican state Sen. Judy Baar Topinka to lead the successful legislative effort to do away with the limits.

"If Judy Baar Topinka has not stepped up to assist me, I don't know that the law would have been changed," Weitzel said.

All three of Weitzel's sons are police officers – two in North Riverside and one in Lockport.

They heard the recording only in the last three months.

"I just have come to grips with it," Weitzel said.