Woman accidentally killed by police officer

Associated Press

CHICAGO

A Chicago police officer shot and killed two people early Saturday while responding to a domestic disturbance call on the city’s West Side, police said.

The shooting happened about 4:25 a.m. after officers who responded to the call “were confronted by a combative subject,” the Chicago Police Department said in a statement.

The medical examiner’s office and family members said Quintonio LeGrier, a 19-year-old college student, was pronounced dead at a hospital at 4:51 a.m. and Bettie Jones, a 55-year-old mother of five who lived downstairs from the apartment where LeGrier was staying, died at a different hospital at 5:14 a.m.

Both LeGrier and Jones were black, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Police did not immediately disclose the race of the officer, nor how long the officer has been with the department or the officer’s current work status.

The Chicago Police Department is the subject of a federal civil-rights investigation, which came after the release of a video showing white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014.

Van Dyke faces six counts of first-degree murder and one of official misconduct in the death of McDonald and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Officials have said the investigation will look into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force and review how the department disciplines officers and handles misconduct accusations.