Kimberly Lightford.Photo: John O’Connor/AP/Shutterstock
Police in Broadview, Illinois are investigating after state senator Kimberly Lightford and her husband were car-jacked Tuesday in an incident in which “multiple gunshots were fired.” The senator and her husband are unharmed, police said in a statement.
“On December 21, 2021 at approximately 9:45 p.m. three masked subjects driving a Durango SUV hijacked a vehicle, a black Mercedes Benz SUV, in the possession of State senator Kimberly Lightford in the 2000 block of South 20th Avenue in Broadview,” the statement from Broadview Police read.
According to police, “multiple gunshots were fired during the incident,” but the 53-year-old state senator and her husband, Eric McKennie, “were unharmed.”
The statement added that the investigation remains ongoing.
The statement continued: “The subjects fled in both senator’s car and in the Durango. Broadview Police are investigating potential surveillance video to help identify the subjects.”
In a statement sent to PEOPLE, Lightford said she was “thankful” not to have been harmed.
“First and foremost I am thankful that my husband and I are alive and physically unharmed,” Lightford said in the statement. “I am trying to process the trauma of what happened. I want to thank everyone who has offered their love and support. I want to especially thank Mayor Katrina Thompson and the Broadview Police Department for their quick and thorough response.”
As Illinois' Democratic senate leader, Lightford is the second-ranking Democrat in the state senate. Earlier this year, she was involved in a scandal after being accused of accepting trips and campaign donations from a hospital where she serves as a board-member.
Lightford called those claims “beyond ridiculous” at the time, with a spokesperson for the hospital telling local reporters: “Any travel and reimbursements, or modest compensation made for time spent working on behalf of the board, was given to all members, which is a common business practice across industries.”
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Broadview — where the carjacking took place — is located roughly 12 miles outside Chicago, which hasseen a spike in crime, including carjackings and armed robberies, during the pandemic.
source: people.com
