Chicago police officers followed protocol when they shot and killed a man with a knife who charged an officer in a Gage Park apartment, police said Thursday.
Juan Hernandez, 45, was pronounced dead at the two-story apartment building in the 5500 block of South Washtenaw Avenue about 10:15 p.m. Wednesday after four officers fired at him, officials said.
Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said it is unclear how many of the officers shot Hernandez.
Bond said police officials concluded Thursday during a roundtable discussion that officers followed procedure by firing, because Hernandez was threatening an officer’s life.
At 9:15 p.m., officers responded to a call of a domestic disturbance involving a man with a knife, police said.
After officers banged on the second-floor apartment door repeatedly, a woman came out, Bond said. Inside the apartment, Hernandez was found holding a knife, she said.
The officers told him in English and Spanish to drop the weapon, and when he refused, officers sprayed him with pepper spray, she said.
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As he wiped the spray from his face, he raised the knife and moved toward the officer spraying him, Bond said.
That officer, along with three others, opened fire, she said.
The woman, whose relationship to the man is not known, was unharmed. No other people were in the apartment, police spokesman Pat Camden.
Police have shot 19 people in 2006, nine of them fatally, Bond said.
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