A veteran Chicago police officer assigned to a special unit to tamp down youth violence was shot to death Wednesday afternoon as he left an Englewood police building in a dangerous stretch of that South Side neighborhood.


Authorities said an assailant took Officer Thor Soderberg's gun and fatally shot him.


Those who knew the 43-year-old officer, normally an instructor at the police training academy, were horrified to learn of his death.

Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said Soderberg was in uniform when he left the facility about 3:45 p.m. at 61st Street and Racine Avenue and walked to a parking lot, where he got into a struggle with a 24-year-old man. The younger man took the officer's gun and shot him, then ran off and attempted an armed robbery not far away, police said.


Jackson said police in the facility heard gunfire, chased the suspect and exchanged shots with him, eventually shooting him. The suspect's injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where uniformed and plainclothes officers stood guard. The suspect is a convicted felon with many arrests, a police source said.