An off-duty Chicago police officer and a woman were killed in a crash early Tuesday morning in the Lawndale neighborhood on the city's West Side.
Chicago police said two vehicles were involved in the crash shortly after 1 a.m. in the 4400-block of West Roosevelt Road.
Chicago police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said the off-duty officer was driving in his personal SUV and crashed with another vehicle that a woman was driving. He said it appears the cars collided at a high rate of speed.
Investigators were on the scene hours after the crash searching for surveillance video in the area and working to build a timeline to determine how the crash happened.
Both the officer and woman pinned into their vehicles which caught fire. They were pronounced dead at the scene and their identities have not been released.
At least 20 police cruisers were seen leaving Stroger Hospital in a procession following the officer's body. The police Major Accidents Investigation Unit was investigating the incident.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson was briefed on the incident and offered the department's deepest condolences to the family of the police officer and the young woman who was killed.
Most drunk-related accidents occur in the early a.m. hours, like this one. One of the drivers sped past the red light and collided with the other one at high rate of speed. Our bet is that the cop was the drunk one.=============
An off-duty Chicago Police officer was one of two people killed in a crash early Tuesday in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side, police said.
The officer was driving his personal SUV about 1 a.m. in the 4400 block of West Roosevelt when it collided with another vehicle, according to a statement from Chicago Police. The vehicles appeared to have collided at a high speed.
The wreckage of two vehicles could be seen at a gas station at Roosevelt and Kostner as police investigated.
The officer and the woman driving the other vehicle were both pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office did not provide information about the fatalities.
The police Major Accidents Investigation Unit was investigating, and investigators were pulling footage from cameras in the area to determine what happened before the crash.
Sharon Fairley, chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police misconduct, was on the scene of the accident.
IPRA spokeswoman Mia Sissac said Fairley arrived on scene as a “precautionary measure” to see if IPRA investigators needed to get involved.
Most drunk-related accidents occur in the early a.m. hours, like this one. One of the drivers sped past the red light and collided with the other one at high rate of speed.