By SAM CHARLES
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson speaks to reporters after an off-duty officer shot and killed a man in the Hermosa neighborhood Monday morning. | Sam Charles/Sun-Times
An off-duty Chicago Police officer fatally shot 38-year-old Jose Nieves in the Northwest Side Hermosa neighborhood after an argument Monday morning, officials said.
Nieves was shot several times and did not have a weapon, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said and the Cook County medical examiner's office.
“I have a lot more questions than I do answers at this time,” Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said during a briefing with reporters. “I came out because I wanted to make sure that the investigation was done properly.”
Johnson said the officer, a 57-year-old man assigned to the mass transit unit, does not live in the area, but knew the person he shot from another “confrontation a few weeks ago.”
An “altercation” between the men escalated about 9:30 a.m. in front of a residence in the 2500 block of North Lowell, and the officer shot Nieves multiple times, according to authorities. He was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he died at 9:51 a.m.
The police department and Independent Police Review Authority have opened simultaneous investigations into the shooting,
Guglielmi said police are still canvassing the area for witnesses and surveillance footage. The shooting happened on the same block as Kelvyn Park High School.
Siclaly Mandujano, 16, and her family have lived a half block south of the shooting scene for five years, and she said was at home when she heard three shots fired. She said she hears gunfire in the area at least once a month.
She sat on her front porch, holding her dog, a chihuahua-Jack Russell terrier-poodle mix, named Lucky, as police closed off traffic on the block.
“I have two older brothers and it’s kind of dangerous for them,” Mandujano said. “They’re not in anything bad or anything, but it’s dangerous for them.”