Police: Chicago shooting leaves two people dead, seven wounded

CHICAGO (AP) — Two people were killed and seven were injured when a man involved in a fight opened fire outside a fast food restaurant just blocks from Chicago's famed Magnificent Mile shopping district, authorities said Friday.

The gunfire at around 10:40 p.m. Thursday near a McDonald's on the city's Near North Side sent bystanders scattering, including a female who was critically injured when she fell onto a third rail in a nearby subway station where many bystanders ran for safety.

At a news conference Friday morning, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said officers took the gunman into custody almost immediately and a weapon was recovered.

The name and age of the person will not be released until he has been charged, Brown said. The department later clarified that the suspect is an adult. Investigators were also searching for a person that Brown said may have handed a weapon to the gunman shortly before the shooting.

Brown said the shooting stemmed from a fight but detectives have not determined what the fight was about.

The fight created a chaotic scene even before the gunfire. That part of the city is typically crowded with tourists, students from the downtown campus of Loyola University Chicago, parishioners of the city's famed Holy Name Cathedral, and people coming to the area to shop and dine in restaurants.

"When the fight first started, we were right next to them," 18year-old Deonna Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times. "We had to run because I didn't want anyone to swing on me."

Chief Juan Hernandez of the city's fire department said the shooting prompted officials to stop a Red Line subway train between two stations to allow police to search for weapons on the rails, according to the Chicago Tribune. Hernandez said the department evacuated passengers at about 11:30 p.m. Trains were running as normal Friday, the Chicago Transit Authority said.

Brown said he is "confident our officers captured the shooter and recovered the weapon used."

The shooting comes amid a surge in deadly violence in Chicago in recent years, and follows a fatal shooting last weekend in downtown Millennium Park that killed a teen and led the city to tighten a curfew for young people. And just days earlier, a shooting in an alley near the Chicago Theatre left two innocent bystanders injured, prompting another theater nearby to cancel a performance of "Moulin Rouge."