CHICAGO — An off-duty Chicago police officer was shot to death Saturday morning and a companion was critically injured when two assailants attacked a parked car on the city’s Near North Side.
The men, both 23, were sitting in the car about 3:30 a.m. when the assailants walked up, and one pulled a gun and began firing into the vehicle.
Another man — also an off-duty Chicago police officer — and a woman were also in the car, but they were not injured, police said.
The dead off-duty officer was identified as John P. Rivera. He was shot in the mouth, chest and right arm, and was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital about 3:50 a.m., according to police.
“Right now, I’m disgusted, and quite frankly, what we know about this incident so far, is just truly disgusting,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a news conference at police headquarters.
“It’s just a shame. This kid’s just 23 years old,” Johnson said. His “whole life and career” was in front of him when he was “gunned down senselessly,” Johnson said.
The wounded man, who is not on the Chicago police force, was shot in the chest and arm, and was also taken to Northwestern, where he was listed in critical condition. Police said they expected him to would survive.
Rivera and his three companions had been at pizzeria before the shooting.
“They were all friends going out to have a good time,” Johnson said of the group.
Johnson said the attacked appeared to be unprovoked.
There’s no evidence that there was any interaction between the officers and the suspects before the shooting, and there’s no indication that the suspects knew they had targeted police officers, Johnson said.
At an earlier news conference outside the hospital, Deputy Superintendent Anthony Riccio said police were unaware of any incidents or confrontations that could have sparked the shooting.
Rivera and the attackers had “no problems, no words were exchanged, no robbery demand, no carjacking demand,” Riccio said.
The attackers fled on foot, but police took one person of interest into custody a short time later. Johnson said they were looking for “at least two more” individuals including the gunman.
“We have very good video of this heinous attack,” Johnson said.
The offenders picked out the car, which was a sedan, in particular, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
The suspects pointed out the car, walked up to it and fired shots at close range. From the video, it doesn’t appear to be a carjacking, Guglielmi said.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office said an autopsy was scheduled for Sunday. Rivera would have been on the job for two years in May.
The other officer in the car has just about the same amount of time on the job, police said, but works in another district on the South Side.
The department is still looking through surveillance video from a “huge number” of cameras in the area and will release photos when they have them.
“It’s a very sad day; we’re mourning the loss of yet another Chicago police officer,” a police union spokesman said at the earlier news conference. “And yet, we’re going out there later today,” he said.
