Larry Martin said he was barbecuing outside this afternoon when he saw a young male sprinting away from Chicago police toward an empty lot across the street.



Then Martin said he heard several loud cracks and saw the teen buckle to the ground.



"I thought it was firecrackers or something," Martin said. But "they shot him."



Pat Camden, spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, said that at about 1 p.m. a Second District tactical team saw an individual at 58th Street and Michigan Avenue in a school yard near where police had recently had a gang dispersal.



Camden said the officers wanted to talk to the male, who police believe is in his late teens. But he started walking away at a fast pace and then started running from police, Camden said.



He ran away from the school and by a liquor store at the corner of 57th and State Streets before heading across the street toward a vacant lot, Camden said.



At some point while he was running away from police, Camden said, a gun dropped from his waist band and he picked it up and pointed it at the officers.