Video footage still of road rage incident (left) via WLS/screengrab, (right inset) Omotayo Kassim in a Chicago Police Department mug shot.
A four-year member of the Chicago Fire Department was suspended after allegations that he shot in a man in the face on New Year’s Eve in a suspected road rage incident and chase that followed a traffic collision in the Windy City.
That night at approximately 8 p.m., according to the Chicago Police Department, 34-year-old Omotayo Kassim was behind the wheel of a Chevy Tahoe in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood when another driver in a Jeep hit his vehicle and tried to U-turn away from the scene.
The firefighter allegedly responded by chasing after the 35-year-old motorist down multiple blocks — before there was another collision, which Kassim allegedly caused. Surveillance video aired by local ABC affiliate WLS showed that a car at a red light was hit as the Jeep and Tahoe in pursuit made turns and drove on the wrong side of the street. Then the suspect allegedly used a “PIT maneuver” to rear-end the Jeep “multiple times,” sending the vehicle into parked cars.
The incident only escalated from there to a shooting.
While other drivers must have been confused by what was taking place, people within earshot initially weren’t so sure that there was a shooting.
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“We heard a pop,” Philip Fahey recalled to the Chicago Sun-Times, explaining that he thought the “pop” was “part of the car accident” involving the parked vehicles.
Fahey reportedly said that Kassim threatened the Jeep driver by saying “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” Then he allegedly fired a shot that hit the other man “in the mouth.”
“When he said he got shot and there was a shooting, I realized it was actually a gunshot,” Fahey additionally recounted to the Sun-Times.
The report, citing police, said that Kassim’s firearm jammed after the gunshot. The defendant allegedly proceeded to argue some more with the Jeep’s passenger before cops seized the suspect’s weapon and arrested him in connection with the shooting.
The suspended Chicago firefighter, employed since 2019, must now contend with felony charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery, charges that could only become more serious if the Jeep driver in critical condition and on life support at the hospital were not to survive. CWBChicago reported that the bullet came close to hitting the victim’s spinal cord.
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