Updated at 12:05 a.m. ET Tuesday
The Chicago Police Department says a police officer has died after he was shot at Mercy Hospital & Medical Center on Chicago’s Near South Side, one of four killed in a domestic-related shooting.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi identified the officer as Samuel Jimenez.
At a news conference, Chicago NPR station WBEZ reported, Superintendent Eddie Johnson confirmed the gunman also killed a doctor at the hospital with whom he’d had a relationship and a hospital staff member. It was not immediately clear if the gunman took his own life or was killed by police.
Witnesses described the shooting to The Associated Press:
“A witness named James Gray told reporters that it looked as if the attacker ‘was turning and shooting people at random.’
“The shooting apparently began as the suspect was walking with a woman near a parking lot. He turned and repeatedly shot the woman in the chest. He then entered the hospital and continued firing, Gray said.
“The two had been talking to each other. Gray said it didn’t seem like a heated exchange.
” ‘Then once she fell to the ground, he stood over her and shot her three more times,’ he said.”
Other witnesses told the news service that the shooter then entered the hospital and continued firing for several minutes.
“The city of Chicago lost a doctor, pharmaceutical assistant, and a police officer, all going about their day, all doing what they loved,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said at the news conference, WBEZ reported. “This just tears at the soul of our city. It is the face and a consequence of evil.”
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