 Two men charged stemming from Black Friday incident at Romeoville Kohl’s BY FRANK VAISVILAS AND ASHLEE REZIN For Sun-Times Media 
 
 Updated: 
 
 ROMEOVILLE — A Romeoville Police officer shot a man and another officer was injured Thursday night while trying to stop three Joliet men suspected of shoplifting at a Kohl’s store in the southwest suburb. Employees at the Romeoville store referred comment to Kohl’s spokeswoman Sydney Hofer, who declined to say whether private security or off-duty police were at the store Thursday evening. Then she saw her car, surrounded by crime tape and not far from a black Pontiac Sunfire with a side window shot out. One of the officers caught up to the car on foot, and while the officer attempted to arrest Russell, of the 500 block of Francis Street in Joliet, he closed the car door on the officer’s arm, police said. The officer’s arm was still stuck in the car’s door when the driver pulled away, dragging the officer, police said. "A second responding officer verbally ordered the driver multiple times to stop the vehicle as it continued in the parking lot, dragging the officer," the statement said. The backup officer fired three or four shots into the car, hitting the driver in the left arm, police said. The officer who was dragged suffered a non-life-threatening shoulder injury and was taken to Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital in Bolingbrook, police said. The driver, 52-year-old Charles Hinch, of the 400 block of Pico Street in Joliet, was taken to Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital in Bolingbrook with one gunshot wound, and later transferred to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, police said. Russell was arrested for obstructing a peace officer in 2009. A third man who was apprehended while still inside the store, 28-year-old Gerald Chamberlain, of the 1300 block of Englewood Avenue in Joliet, was also arrested in connection with the incident. Chamberlain and Russell were booked into the county jail around 9:45 a.m. Friday and are scheduled to appear in court Saturday. Chamberlain was jailed on a single count of felony theft. Will County State’s attorney spokesman Charles Pelkie said Friday afternoon that charges were being reviewed and Russell likely would be charged with aggravated battery to a police officer. Chamberlain was arrested in May on drug possession charges and is already scheduled to appear in court Dec. 23 on traffic charges. It’s not like a jewelry heist or a bank robbery.” 
 
 A spokesperson for Kohl’s said in an email Friday that the store is cooperating with investigators, and deferred any further comment to police. The commotion began about 10 p.m. when police were alerted to a theft in progress at the store, Romeoville Police Chief Mark Turvey said. One entrance to the Kohl’s, at Airport Road and Weber Road about a mile south of Interstate 55, remained open early Friday and people were still shopping inside the store.
– It's tough to decide which part of this story is worse: the crime or the aftermath. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a police officer's arm became caught in a Pontiac Sunfire around 10pm last night while chasing after a man who was allegedly part of a Black Friday shoplifting scheme at a Kohl's in Romeoville. As the car dragged the officer ("quite a distance, in WLS' telling), its driver refusing commands that he stop, police fired, hitting the driver on his left side, in the shoulder area. And then there's this, per the Tribune: Apparently not bothered by the three or four shots that were fired, nor by the fact that police had marked off a store entrance as a crime scene, shoppers continued to do their thing inside, though some stopped to snap cell photos of the scene.