The burglary suspect has not been charged at this time, but he allegedly rang the doorbell of the officer's house. She was asleep and didn't answer the door, and that's when police say the break-in occurred.
A bullet hole in the officer's first-floor window is evidence of the confrontation at her home.
"I heard two shots, and then I heard another one. And I said, "Firecrackers?" And then when I came out, I ran out the room. I said, "Somebody's shooting!" said Dorothy Campbell, neighbor.
Next-door neighbor Dorothy Campbell says she then went outside and overheard her friend, the Chicago police officer, ordering the alleged intruder not to move.
"She kept telling him, 'Don't get up. The police are not here yet. Don't get up.' And I think I overheard him say something about, 'You shot me in my leg.' Or something like that," said Campbell.
The off-duty transit officer had been asleep, officials say, when the suspect, age 17 or 18, broke in through a first-floor window.
"She walks down the stairs and hears an individual ransacking the bedroom on the first floor. She says, "Police officer! Put your hands up!" Instead, he lunges at her. The suspect is hit several times," said Pat Camdem, spokesman, Fraternal Order of Police.
After police arrived, the teenager was taken to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. He's expected to survive.
"If he went in the way they said he did, in the window, he got what he deserved. That's all I can say. She did what was best for her," said Pat Williams, neighbor.
"He looked young, yeah. Like a baby. Like he should have been in school somewhere," said Campbell.
The officer, a mother of two in her late 40s, was not seriously injured. Neighbors say this is the second time her home has been broken into in about the last year and a half.
"The police say she was okay. She was a little shaken and upset. But otherwise, she was okay," said Campbell.
The officer has not been available for comment. As is standard with police-involved shootings, the Independent Police Review Authority is investigating.
