Two Chicago police officers were shot Saturday night in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, according to Chicago police.
One of the officers, a woman, has died, according to the Chicago Police Department. The other is fighting for his life, First Deputy Supt. Eric Carter said at a news conference early Sunday morning.
“Our hearts ache for the loss of life,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at the news conference.
The officer was the first Chicago cop to be shot and killed in the line of duty since Lightfoot became mayor in 2019. Last year, the deaths of four other Chicago cops who succumbed to COVID-19 were also considered by the police department to be in the line of duty.
Prior to Saturday night, though, the last line-of-duty deaths of Chicago cops who were killed while pursuing a suspect were in December 2018, when Officers Eduardo Marmolejo and Conrad Gary were fatally struck by a train as they looked for a suspect wanted for illegally possessing a gun. That suspect, Edward Brown, was sentenced this past April to a year in prison for a felony weapon violation in the case.
The shooting happened just after 9 p.m. near West 63rd Street and South Bell Avenue when the officers conducted a traffic stop, Carter said. There were three people in the vehicle, two males and one female.
During the stop, someone opened fire on the officers and the officers returned fire, Carter said. Two officers and one of the suspects were shot.
The officers were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, police spokesman Tom Ahern wrote in a tweet.
Two males are in custody and one suspect, the female, is still at large, Ahern said. The male suspect who was shot was taken to Christ Hospital. One handgun was recovered from the scene, he said.
The officer who died had worked for the Chicago Police Department since 2018 and was a member of the community safety team, a citywide unit formed last summer under police Superintendent David Brown to respond to crime hotspots.
An overnight email from the top leadership of the Chicago Police Department urged the department to “keep the families and friends of these officers in your prayers. Please continue to look out for each other on and off duty as we process this heartbreaking tragedy.”
Numerous marked and unmarked police vehicles, with their lights flashing, blocked off traffic along West 63rd Street for three or four blocks heading west and on side streets all around the scene. Cook County Sheriff’s Police were also on the scene helping with traffic control.
Outside of the University of Chicago Medical Center’s ambulance entrance on Cottage Grove Avenue, dozens of Chicago police officers and Cook County sheriff deputies stood outside. Cottage Grove and 57th Street by the hospital were both lined with squad cars.
Officers exchanged hugs with each other and people in plain clothes. Some women walked up to the entrance in tears as an officer escorted them.
A Jeep pulled up to the intersection and a passenger rolled down his window and yelled out to a woman on the sidewalk, “What happened over here?”
”Two officers were shot,” she replied.
”Oh, wow,” he said as he shook his head and rolled up the window.
The Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge #7, tweeted “Lord, please look over these two Officers, keep them and every Officer out in the 8th District safe tonight. This career of service we all chose is one of sacrifice, but please Lord, not tonight. Not tonight.”
Early Sunday morning, dozens of police officers stood along Harrison and Leavitt streets outside the Cook County medical examiner’s office as the officer’s body was slowly escorted into its dimly lit parking lot by a musical group playing the bagpipes — a tradition for a Chicago cop who dies in the line of duty.
With the roaring of a parked firetruck in the background, scores of officers saluted Chicago Fire Department Ambulance 36 as it moved slowly with its emergency lights flashing.
Some firefighters and paramedics paid their respects too. Firetrucks stationed across Harrison from one another had their ladders hoisted in mid-air to the point where they were nearly adjoining, so they could together drape a large American flag in front of the procession for the ambulance.
Dozens of police vehicles, their blue emergency lights flashing, comprised the procession, giving the initial escort for the ambulance from the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the officer was pronounced dead.
This story has been edited to remove information incorrectly attributed to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
Annie Sweeney contributed.
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
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