A robbery suspect being escorted under police guard inside a Chicago hospital emergency department opened fire Saturday morning, killing Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew, 38, and critically wounding a second officer, 57. The shooting — during a prisoner transport to an emergency department — is focusing attention on hospital-escort protocols nationwide, including those in Spartanburg County.
Bartholomew, a 10-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department’s 17th District, was accompanying a suspect arrested that morning on armed robbery charges when the man produced a firearm and shot both officers. The second officer, a 21-year CPD veteran, remained in critical condition Sunday at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. A third firearm was recovered during the suspect’s SWAT arrest at a nearby Lincoln Square residence. Chicago police officials confirmed both officers served in the 17th District; the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office formally identified Bartholomew Sunday morning.
In Spartanburg County, prisoner transports and mental-health hold escorts to hospital ERs are coordinated between the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, led by Sheriff Chuck Wright, and Spartanburg City Police under Chief Alonzo Thompson — the same category of call that put Bartholomew inside a hospital ER. Spartanburg Regional Medical Center and Pelham Medical Center in Greer are both served by those detail rotations. SRHS’s in-house armed security force requires officers to be SLED-certified to carry firearms, with a minimum of two years of full law enforcement experience, and operates under South Carolina criminal statutes with authority to restrain combative patients and support responding officers on campus.
Chicago officials confirmed the suspect cleared the hospital’s weapon-detection screening on arrival yet still produced a firearm inside the emergency department — a gap between intake screening and close-custody escort that armed hospital-detail protocols at Spartanburg Regional are specifically structured to address.
