Off-duty Chicago cop kills daughter, himself

An off-duty Chicago police officer shot and killed his young daughter and critically injured his young son before taking his own life with a gun Monday morning, police said.

Chicago Police said the shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute between the officer and the children's mother, but they would not elaborate. They would not release the name of the officer, saying only that he was 31 years old and had been with the department about four years.

Department spokeswoman Monique Bond said police responded to a "shots fired" call at the officer's home in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the city's southwest side at about 10:45 a.m.

When officers arrived, a woman outside told them that there were children in the one-story brick house and that she'd heard shots.

"You could hear moans from within the residence," said First Deputy Superintendent James Jackson.

SWAT officers rushed in the house, finding the dead officer and the two children, who police say were an 8-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, in separate areas of the home. Bond said it appeared that all had been shot with the same handgun. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office said the girl, who they said was 7 years old, was pronounced dead at 11:52 a.m.

The children were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where the boy remained in critical condition Monday afternoon.

Police said the officer who took his own life lived at the house, but they did not know if the two children lived there, as well. Officials with the city's Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates all police shootings, also were on scene.

Jonathan Arenas, 26, who lives two blocks away, said he was walking by the residence when he saw SWAT officers rush into the building. He said he also saw blood on the two children as paramedics brought them out on stretchers.

"All the cops were running back and forth," Arenas said. "That's when they took the two children."