Season premiere trailer of 'Black Ink Crew: Chicago' reportedly contains a gun incident
'Black Ink Crew: Chicago' has always been known for giving viewers a taste of the numerous fistfights and screaming matches that take place between the employees of the 9Mag tattoo shop in Pilsen.
However, the season 4 premiere episode shows an incident involving a gun, which reportedly led to an incident where the police were about to get involved. The drama spurred a neighbor to call the police about property damage and temporarily halted production on the VH1 reality series.
According to the police reports, Ryan Henry ended up destroying the insides of his tattoo shop on January 31, a story which even the show's cast members have confirmed. Henry was even shown on video carrying an unidentified weapon, which was later deemed as “unknown if rifle or shotgun” at about 2 am at Lacuna Lofts, which is where the tattoo shop is located.
The police reported that there was no one harmed, although there was quite a lot of damage done to the shop’s walls, dressing rooms, and makeup rooms. In the premiere video, cast members of the VH1 show are seen noting all the bullet holes that they see while surveying the damage done to the place.
When Henry was confronted about the shooting and bullet holes by one of his cast-mates on the show, he admitted to causing the damage, saying “I did it”, all the while continuing to distance himself from his co-workers over their long-standing arguments.
As for the series, the show's executive producer Dan Cesareo said that the show's cameras were not filming when the actual incident took place, and that production resumed only a week after the drama had died down at the shop.
“We used this opportunity to reassess safety and security of the team and the community around us. We put significant additional measures in place to keep our cast and our crew and the community around us safe and be a good member of the loft community,” Cesareo told the Tribune via a telephone call.
“I think it’s something that both Big Fish (Entertainment), as a production company, and the network worked very closely together and put a lot of thought and time into how we were moving forward with the show.”
However, Cesareo declined to comment on the new safety measures that the enterprise is planning to implement following the incident, adding that the investigation into the incident is ongoing. “We have the same precautions that any show of this nature has in place,” Cesareo said. “We follow the same protocols. We produced more than 150 episodes of ‘Black Ink Crew’ between (the) New York (edition) and Chicago. We’re extremely thoughtful and thorough in our approach to filming.”
