What happened in Antioch, Gurnee could become learning tool for police

A former head of a Lake County police chiefs organization says confrontations with law enforcement that occurred in and around Antioch and Gurnee could become something that's studied and used in training for officers.

Mundelein Police Chief Eric Guenther said even the best-trained officers could not have been prepared for a driver ramming an Antioch squad car Wednesday morning, followed by a standoff with police in unincorporated Antioch Township and ending with a woman being fatally shot by Gurnee officers later in the day.

"When these things happen so close to home, the conversation increases," said Guenther, named in April as the 2018 chief of the year by the Illinois Police Chiefs Association. "And the officers talk about it, chiefs are talking about it. But also, from the leadership perspective, we're looking at it as an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to change what we do in the future and use this as a training scenario and a learning scenario for all of us."

Guenther, president of the Lake County Chiefs of Police Association in 2017, said what occurred Wednesday illustrates why officers must be on guard in suburbs perceived as having less crime.

"Yes, we are not downtown Chicago and we probably don't experience the things that the city of Chicago experiences in relation to frequency," he said. "But that doesn't preclude us from experiencing the same the types of incidents, just with less frequency."