SandyMaloneChicago, IL – A high-ranking Chicago police commander was fatally shot around 2 p.m. on Tuesday at the James R. Thompson Center, also known as the state of Illinois building, in downtown Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the police commander was assisting a tactical unit at the time he was gunned down.
WLS-TV reported that the murdered officer was found in the stairwell of the government building, and that he had been shot twice in the head.
The investigative team at WLS-TV reported that the officer was believed to be trying to break up a gun deal at the time he was killed.
The officer was taken to Northwestern Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Sources have reported that a suspect has been arrested and taken to Area Central police headquarters.
Noreen Janko told the Chicago Tribune she heard shots as she was walking back to her office building across the street from where the officer was killed.
“I heard the gunshots go off, about five shots, and then the stairs there to the pedway, I think they have the guy cornered because they lock those doors down there,” Janko said. “So they took him with shackles and then they put him in the squad. Then the ambulance came, about five minutes [later] they brought out a guy who was shot. He was on the stretcher, there was blood and they were doing [CPR].”
“Anyway, so they had him cornered and eventually they brought him up the stairs and put him in the squad,” Janko said.
Another witness told WLS-TV that she heard two men yelling at each other and they began to fight over something and fell down the stairs, but that she couldn’t tell if either of those men was a police officer. She said the fight began near a set of emergency exit stairs just outside the building.
Federal agents and the Illinois State Police were at the scene assisting with the investigation, the Chicago Tribune reported.
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