A man who was convicted of shooting and paralyzing a Chicago police officer in 1996 died Wednesday in Pontiac Correctional Center, officials said.In 2002, George Guirsch, then 67, was resentenced to 100 years in prison for shooting at four officers and paralyzing one, Officer Jim Mullen, from the neck down. He was originally sentenced to 140 years in prison, 70 years each for two counts of attempted murder of a police officer under the Safe Neighborhoods Act, but that law was overturned in 1999 by the Illinois Supreme Court.
On Oct. 16, 1996, four officers responded to a call of gunfire from Guirsch's apartment in the Rogers Park neighborhood, officials said. When they arrived, Guirsch, an off-duty security guard for a detective agency, fired at the officers, seriously wounding Mullen. He was originally sentenced in 1998.
Mullen filed suit against the Professionals Detective Agency, who employed Guirsch as a security guard, and they settled with him in 2000 for an undisclosed amount.
Mullen's complaint against the ageny alleged it either knew or should have realized that Guirsch's behavior in the months before the shooting made him unsuitable to be armed.
Guirsch, 76, died Wednesday at Pontiac apparently of natural causes. No foul play was suspected, said Sharyn Elman, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections.
An official cause of death was pending autopsy results, according to a spokeswoman for the Livingston County Coroner's office in Pontiac.
