A Chicago police officer was listed in critical condition early Tuesday after he was shot in the abdomen by a youth riding a bicycle on the South Side, police said.
The unidentified officer, a 22-year veteran of the force, underwent surgery at 11:47 p.m. Monday in Christ Hospital and Medical Center, Oak Lawn, for a bullet wound to the left upper abdomen, said Donna King, a nursing supervisor.
The officer, an evidence technician from the Gresham District, had stopped to write a ticket on an illegally parked van in the 1500 block of West 79th Street late Monday when someone told him that a young man, possibly a teenager, was riding a white bicycle in the area while carrying a gun, police Lt. Robert Goldsmith said.
Moments later, the officer stopped a youth on a white bicycle by the van. The officer started to frisk the suspect, ”and all of a sudden, boom,”
Goldsmith said.
The officer managed to wrest the gun from the youth, stagger to his squad car, put the gun in the car and notify police by radio that he had been shot, Goldsmith said.
The suspect left the bicycle in the middle of the street and ran five blocks to a home where his grandparents apparently live, Goldsmith said. He said police arrested the youth there and took him to Gresham District headquarters.
Charges had not been filed early Tuesday against against the suspect, whose age was undetermined. Police described the weapon as a .22 caliber handgun.
Police were trying to determine whether the officer`s shooting was related to an earlier shooting in the area in which a youth shot his sister in the head, seriously wounding her, and fled. The youth had not been apprehended when the officer was shot.
Goldsmith said that when he arrived on the scene, the wounded officer appeared to be breathing well before the ambulance took him away.
He described the officer as a member of the military reserve and in good physical health.
