March 22--An off-duty Chicago police officer exchanged gunfire with two armed robbers early Monday after one of the gunmen told the other to shoot the cop, authorities said.
The officer, 49, was hit in the leg, and one of the robbers may also have been wounded in the shootout, according to interim police Superintendent John Escalante.
Detectives were questioning a person who showed up at Little Company of Mary Hospital shortly after the shooting with a gunshot wound, Escalante said. Due to the timing, police believe he may be the person shot by the officer.
The officer was parking his car near his home in the 10100 block of South Green Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood around 2:20 a.m. when the two gunmen walked up on either side and announced a robbery, Escalante said outside Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where the officer was being treated.
"The officer was very concerned at that point because they obviously didn't know he was a police officer and he was very concerned that once they realized he was a police officer that they might immediately shoot," Escalante said.
"He started to comply with their demands," the superintendent said. "And then he became concerned when he heard one of them say, 'Shoot him.' "
The officer, assigned to the Gang Enforcement Section, pulled out his gun and exchanged gunfire with at least one of the robbers, Escalante said.
The officer was hit in the right leg and was taken to Christ Medical Center, the ambulance ripping through crime tape that had already been strung around the scene. He was listed in good condition.
At the scene, police used bits of paper to mark a cluster of shell casings in the middle of Green Street. Officers cleared out the block so canine units could search for traces of the suspect as the street grew quiet.
A woman in her pajamas with a blanket around her waist leaned out her front door. She had heard the shots and saw police officers gathered around the officer's home. She and the officer have lived in the neighborhood for decades, she said.
When the gunfire woke her up, she feared the worst but she knew better than to go outside, she said. "You hear gunshots and you wait (to hear) movement," she said. "Either running or a car. And then you wait 15 minutes."
When told the officer was expected to survive, she took a deep breath and went back inside.
Escalante said he spoke with the officer and he was in "good spirit."
"He realized how close he was and it could have been much worse," the superintendent said. (The wording of this quote has been corrected from earlier versions of this story.)
Police in Chicago and the suburbs have been involved in three other shootings in the last week.
On Saturday night, an off-duty Chicago police officer shot and wounded a man who hit him with a baseball bat in the Northwest Side's Belmont Central neighborhood, police said.
Earlier that day, a Park Forest police officer was shot and critically wounded in a gunfight with a 21-year-old burglary suspect who was killed, according to authorities.
On March 14, three Chicago police officers were wounded after exchanging gunfire with a 29-year-old man they suspected of making a drug transaction in the Homan Square neighborhood on the West Side, police said. The suspect was killed.
Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed.
