Four people including a Chicago police officer, a doctor in the emergency room and a pharmacy resident were killed – Monday afternoon in a shooting attack at Mercy Hospital near the south of the city.
The gunman, Juan Lopez, 32, was also killed.
The victims have been identified as Dr. Tamara O’Neill and Chicago Police Officer Samuel Jimenez. The mayor said during a press conference that a pharmacist assistant was also shot dead.
Shooting broke out inside and outside the hospital after three in the afternoon. At the main hospital located on South Michigan Avenue and West 25th Street.
The Chicago Sheriff said the shooting started in the parking lot outside Mercy Hospital as part of an internal dispute between O’Neill and Lopez.
During the melee, Lopez takes out a gun and shoots O’Neill.
Relatives said O’Neal was about to marry Lopez in October, but that he canceled the wedding in September. Hospital officials said she was dedicated to caring for her community, and was also dedicated to her church. Officials described her as “the best person ever, really.”
After his ex-fiancée was shot, Lopez ran to Mercy Hospital and kept shooting while the First Response Officers chased. Inside the hospital, Johnson said, the police exchanged fire with Lopez.
Hospital officials said that inside the hospital, Lopez shot 25-year-old Dyna Lees, a first-year pharmacy resident. She was taken to hospital in critical condition where she later died.
Johnson said that during the exchange of fire inside the hospital, the shooter was shot dead, though it was not immediately clear if he was hit by police fire or if the gunshot was of his own making.
