Gunman kills 3 people in Chicago hospital

CHICAGO — A gunman opened fire Monday at a Chicago hospital, killing a police officer and two hospital employees in an attack that began with a domestic dispute and exploded into a firefight with law enforcement inside the medical center. The suspect was also dead, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear if the attacker took his own life or was killed by police at Mercy Hospital on the city’s South Side, police said.

“The city of Chicago lost a doctor, pharmaceutical assistant and a police officer, all going about their day, all doing what they loved,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, fighting back tears. “This just tears at the soul of our city. It is the face and a consequence of evil.”

Mercy Hospital identified the two members of its staff as an emergency room physician, 38-year-old Dr. Tamera O’Neal, and 25-year-old pharmaceutical assistant Dayna Less, who was in training to become a pharmacist.

Police say O’Neal was confronted in the hospital parking lot by the gunman, with whom she had been in a domestic relationship.

When a friend of the woman’s tried to intervene, “the offender lifted up his shirt and displayed a handgun,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.

The woman’s friend ran into the hospital to call for help, and the gunfire began seconds later, with the attacker killing the woman he was arguing with.

When officers arrived, the suspect fired at their squad car and then ran inside the hospital. The officers gave chase.

Inside the hospital, the gunman exchanged fire with officers and “shot a poor woman who just came off the elevator” before he was killed, Johnson said, referring to Less. She was a recent Purdue University graduate.

The slain officer was identified as Samuel Jimenez, who joined the department in February 2017 and had just recently completed his probationary period, Johnson said.

O’Neal, was described as a fascinating, hardworking person. Hospital officials said that O’Neal never worked on Sunday because of her religious beliefs.

Jennifer Eldridge was working in a hospital pharmacy when she heard three or four shots that seemed to come from outside. Within seconds, she barricaded the door, as called for in the building’s active shooter drills. Then there were six or seven more shots just outside the door.

“I could tell he was now inside the lobby. There was screaming,” she recalled.

The door jiggled, which Eldridge believed was the shooter trying to get in. Some 15 minutes later, she estimated, a police special weapons and tactics team officer knocked at the door, came in and led her away. She looked down and saw blood on the floor but no bodies.

Dennis Burke, who lives across the street from the hospital, was getting off the bus when he heard six gunshots and saw officers nearby with their guns drawn.

“I dropped my groceries,” Burke said. He ducked behind the bus for cover and watched as 50 to 100 people poured out of the hospital, including a victim on a stretcher.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael Tarm of The Associated Press.