The shooting happened near the intersection of 75th and Lafayette. Residents say violence in the area is a daily occurrence.
Six undercover police officers were monitoring the area when they became suspicious of a man in a parked car.
An undercover police officer shot and killed the suspect in a Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits parking lot when he became erratic during questioning.
"The officer became lodged in the vehicle. The officers continued to give orders for the offender to place his vehicle in park, which he refused to do so," said Deputy Chicago Police Chief Dana Alexander. "The officer's partner, fearing that the partner would be dragged from this location as he was lodged in this vehicle and the defendant was refusing to place it in park, fired four shots, fatally wounding the offender."
Undercover police officers have been investigating drug trafficking in the area and have made several arrests in this South Side community.
Dana said they recovered a nine-millimeter, fully-loaded weapon from the offender's front left pocket.
Police closed several blocks surrounding the crime scene Thursday afternoon.
Alexander said one of the officers was also struck by a vehicle and taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
Witness Jay McMullen, 18, said he heard shots fired.
"I saw a man go up in there, but there was a Grand Am sitting in the parking lot. The man went in there, I guess he was doing something he didn't have no business doing, so the police, he was an undercover police, he went in there," said McMullen. "They had some words. The guy had a gun on him. The police saw the gun, I guess, because he was undercover, he tried to get up out of there, he tried to go out the side door, and some shots was fired."
"I heard three shots - it was boom, boom, boom," said McMullen. "The dude was laid out in the parking lot."
Police have not he released the name or age of the offender, but he was reportedly in his 20s.
