Three suspects were arrested at the end of a high-speed chase after a CBS News Chicago television crew was attacked as it set up for a live broadcast in the city, according to police.
The incident occurred just before 4:30 p.m. on Monday near the Adler Planetarium, where a reporter and photographer were preparing to go live. According to witnesses, a white tow truck pulled up and parked directly in front of the journalists’ van.
“They just were trying to do anything they could to scare them unnecessarily,” a witness told CBS News. “It came out of nowhere.”
The occupants of the truck, described by observers as white or Hispanic, reportedly initiated the confrontation when a man exited the vehicle with a dog and approached the crew. Witnesses stated that the man began shouting racial slurs directed at the photographer, who is Black.
“It started racial with the cameraman because he’s an African American male,” the witness said.
Chicago police reported that the man first unsuccessfully ordered his dog to attack the crew. A second witness told reporters, “I think he was trying to, again, intimidate him, make him scared by having the dog approach first.”
When a crew member attempted to defend himself against the dog, the remaining two men inside the tow truck joined in.
“They were saying, ‘Leave the dog alone,’ and I just feel like maybe the scene got more chaotic than they were expecting, and I feel like the only thing they thought to do was to just cause as much damage as they could and leave,” the witness said.
One suspect smashed the photographer’s camera. Another used a traffic cone to shatter the windshield of the news broadcast truck before the group fled. The news crew was not physically injured.
“We are shocked and horrified by this crime and we are grateful that our journalists are safe,” a CBS spokesperson said in a statement.
The suspects were arrested approximately 20 minutes later following a separate incident. Chicago police received reports that the same tow truck was involved in an incident near 42nd Street and Western Avenue in Brighton Park, where the occupants allegedly pointed a firearm at pedestrians.
When officers located the vehicle, the driver attempted to flee, eventually crashing into a police squad car. All three occupants jumped out of the truck but were quickly taken into custody.
Authorities recovered a firearm from the tow truck, but stated that it had not been pointed during the initial attack on the journalists.
“We didn’t see any guns in that moment, but to know that it escalated to that or could have been that is just terrifying,” the witness told the outlet. Charges remain pending as the investigation continues.
The assault comes amid an ongoing national debate over public safety in Chicago, fueled by recent fluctuations in the city’s crime statistics, as reported by The Independent. A string of Juneteenth weekend shootings that left eight people dead and 39 wounded raised new questions regarding the city’s security.
The spike in holiday weekend violence prompted President Donald Trump to criticize Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago — both frequent targets across his administrations — claiming on social media that he could “fix” the issue and demanding that the governor request federal assistance, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Guard.
Pritzker responded by mocking the president’s management of federal infrastructure, including a past renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and his foreign policy decisions regarding Iran.
Recent police data indicates that the Juneteenth bloodshed pushed Chicago killings up 9 percent this year through Sunday, with overall shootings rising 5 percent compared to the same period in 2025.
But while homicides have ticked upward, broader law enforcement data reveals a decline in other offenses.
Christopher Herrmann, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, told The Independent on June 24 that there were nearly 1,600 crimes reported in Chicago last week, representing a 21 percent decrease from the same week last year.
“Everything else is down quite a bit in Chicago last week, and pretty much over last month, and pretty much for a good chunk of the year,” Herrmann said.
