Emanuel directs police to review crisis training

He said he heard gunshots as he made his way down from the second floor and saw his son and Jones lying in the foyer. Both of those killed were black. Bettie Jones, 55, was also killed by police during the incident.

Bettie Jones, an Action Now member, posed no threat to police officers.

Police were summoned and the father asked Jones, a neighbor, to look out for the officers. Police should use stun guns or other nonlethal methods instead, Walker said at a news conference outside the West Side residence where the victims lived.

Police said an officer was responding to a “domestic dispute” around 4:30 a.m. Saturday when a person became combative “resulting in the discharging of the officer’s handgun, fatally wounding two individuals”.

“The department extends its deepest condolences to the victim’s family and friends”, the police department said in a statement.

Mr LeGrier struggled with mental health issues and was threatening his father with a baseball bat, relatives told the Chicago Tribune. “No mother should have to bury her child”, Janet Cooksey, LeGrier’s mother, told a news conference in front of the home. She said she has seen other families who lost their loved ones to police shootings, and now it has happened to her.

The shootings came amid scrutiny of police after a series of deaths of African-Americans at the hands of officers gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. One of the daughters asked one of the police officers, ‘Why did you shoot my mother?’ His response was ‘Your mother’s dead.

Homicides overall, not just officer-involved shootings, have been a major issue in Chicago, dealing with more homicides the past few years than even NY and Los Angeles, two more populous cities. “With that in mind, I have been informed that the Independent Police Review Authority has opened investigations into each shooting, and that all evidence will be shared with the Cook County States Attorney’s Office for additional review in the days ahead”.

IPRA spokesman Larry Merritt said that he was unsure how long the investigation would take.

The city is now under federal civil rights investigation for the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times in 2014.

Shortly after the video’s release, the city announced it would expand the body camera program for police, which will record officers in the line of duty.

Police tactics and racism have been the subject of a national debate since protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, in mid-2014 over the shooting death of a black teenager, 18-year-old Michael Brown. Bettie Jones, 55, was also killed by police during the incident.

Marshall Hatch, minister at the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church of West Garfield Park, the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said Sunday that “for Chicago police to be this reckless when the national spotlight is on the department shows how deeply dysfunctional the relationship is between this department and its citizens”.

“We will be a better city for it”, Emanuel said.

The younger victim is Quintonio L. He spent Christmas with his father Antonio L. When he returned to a family gathering at his home, the son seemed a little nervous. “I want answers”, Jennings said. The elder LeGrier said it was he who had called police on his son. The father told the newspaper that he called Jones, who lived a floor below, and warned her that his son was a “little irate” and not to open the door unless police arrived.

When the police arrived, family members said, the landlord called down to Jones, his downstairs tenant, to answer the door.

Antonio LeGrier told the AP that moments earlier he heard Jones yell, “Whoa, Whoa Whoa!” When he got a floor lower he saw his son and the neighbor on the ground.

Both LeGrier and Jones were black, the medical examiner’s office said.

Legrier’s mother says the cops “overreacted”, and shot her son seven times.

Antonio LeGrier told the Sun-Times that his son had emotional problems after spending most of his childhood in foster care.

Melvin Jones, the brother of the woman killed Saturday, told the Tribune his sister celebrated Christmas at her apartment Friday with about 15 other relatives. She said it will focus in particular on use of force and deadly force, including racial, ethnic and other disparities in use of force, and its systems of accountability. “I understand that you all and all Chicagoans are anxious for answers as to what happened here and we will provide any and all information at the appropriate time, ‘ said IPRA administrator Sharon Fairley”.