Chicago Police Shooting: 2 Killed After Officers Respond To Domestic Disturbance

UPDATE: 7:30 p.m. EST: The families of two people fatally shot by Chicago police Saturday have spoken out about the incident. The father of the 19-year-old killed, who was reportedly carrying a baseball bat after police were called for a domestic disturbance, spoke to the Chicago Tribune.

Sources had earlier told the paper the young man, Quintonio LeGrier, had struggled with mental problems and had threatened his father in the early morning incident. Antonio LeGreir told the Tribune his son had "emotional issues" and that he felt police "messed up" when they shot him coming to the door.

"I don't feel that his life was worth losing because he got upset," Antonio LeGrier told the Tribune.

Meanwhile, relatives of Bettie Jones, a 55-year-old mother of five, said they thought she was shot by mistake.

UPDATE: 3:20 p.m. EST: Police released audio of Saturday morning's shooting. You can listen to it here.

Original post:

Two people, a 19-year-old black man and a 55-year-old black woman, were shot and killed by a Chicago police officer early Saturday. The police said officers responding to a domestic disturbance were “confronted by a combative subject.”

Police representative Becky Schlikerman said Quintonio LeGreir and Bettie Jones were killed on the city’s West Side, according to the Associated Press. Both were pronounced dead at separate hospitals. Autopsies had not yet been scheduled.

“Upon arrival, officers were confronted by a combative subject resulting in the discharging of the officer’s weapon, fatally wounding two individuals,” the police said in a statement.

The Chicago Tribune reported one of its sources said LeGrier had been carrying a bat and threatening his father when police were called, and that no gun was recovered from the scene. Relatives told the newspaper that he was a student at Northern Illinois University and that he had been struggling with mental issues recently. Jones was a mother of five who lived on the first floor of the building where the shooting occurred, the paper reported.

Neighbors and relatives told the Chicago Sun-Times that Jones opened the door for police and was shot in the neck soon afterward. Jones’ daughter, Latesha Jones, told the paper she awoke to gunshots and found her mother bleeding by the front door.

“She wasn’t saying anything,” Latesha Jones said, adding that she could hear her mother breathing as she was taken away.

The police have said the shooting is under investigation and that the case was referred to the Chicago’s main police oversight agency. Independent Police Review Authority representative Larry Merritt confirmed to AP that the agency was investigating but disclosed no other information.

The Chicago Police Department is the subject of a federal civil-rights probe, which began after the release of a video showing a white officer shooting a black teenager 16 times last year. There have been multiple demonstrations in the city in response to the death of Laquan McDonald. Protesters took to the streets as recently as Christmas Eve to disrupt shopping along the popular tourist destination Michigan Avenue as a way of pressuring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign.