By Fox 32 Digital Staff
Published May 6, 2023 7:21AM
CHICAGO - An off-duty Chicago police officer was killed in a shooting in Avalon Park early Saturday morning.
CPD Interim Superintendent Eric Carter says the officer was leaving work around 1:42 a.m. in the 8100 block of South Blackstone Avenue when she was shot.
She was transported to University of Chicago Medical Center by fellow officers responding to the scene. She was pronounced dead shortly after.
The female officer's identity has not been released at this time. The officer served three years with the department.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked that the family of the victim be given privacy as they grieve during a news conference this morning.
Police say the investigation is still early on.
UPDATED
Off-duty Chicago police officer killed in Avalon Park always wanted to be a cop, father says
Areanah Preston, 24, “was dedicated to making a difference,” one of her professors at Illinois State University says.
By Mary Norkol, Tom Schuba, Violet Miller and Allison Novelo
May 6, 2023, 8:00am CDT
Officer Areanah Preston was shot and killed outside her Avalon Park home on Saturday, May 6, 2023
A Chicago police officer described as someone “trying to make a change on this Earth” and to show “young people that policing is a profession that can make a difference in the community” was shot to death early Saturday near her home in Avalon Park on the city’s South Side.
Areanah Preston, 24, was getting home from work when she was shot at about 1:42 a.m. in the 8100 block of South Blackstone Avenue, according to the Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The shooting happened during a stickup that might be related to another nearby robbery, according to law enforcement sources, who said Preston’s gun was taken. Police radio traffic shows the city’s gunshot-detection system ShotSpotter registered nine rounds in the area.
An Apple Watch later indicated there was a traffic crash in the block at about 2:02 a.m. and called 911, according to radio traffic. At about 2:15 a.m. — more than 30 minutes after the shooting — a responding officer reported Preston had been shot.
“We got a person shot,” the officer could be heard saying over the radio. “It’s an off-duty [police officer]. Get an ambulance here now.”
The officer ultimately put Preston in a police vehicle and rushed her to the University of Chicago Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, according to the police, who said no arrests have been made.
Police officers gather Saturday in the 8100 block of South Blackstone Avenue after an off-duty Chicago police officer was shot to death while returning to her South Side home.
Preston, who worked in the Calumet District, has been with the Chicago Police Department for three years.
Her father Allen Preston, who lives in Los Angeles, said he hadn’t heard details about what happened but said: “She was trying to make a change on this Earth. It’s unforgivable, in my eyes.”
Preston described his daughter as a “beautiful soul” who “always saw the best in people” and had long desired to become a cop. To him, her calling seemed more like destiny since he and his ex-wife had a police escort to the hospital before she was born.
Still, he had concerns about the dangers of the job, even though she followed “half” her family into the profession.
“This was my baby, everything I did was for her,” he said. “I don’t know what to do right now. … I’ll be dealing with this for the rest of my life.”
She’s also survived by her mother and younger twin sisters.
More than a dozen family members gathered Saturday outside Preston’s home. A few police officers parked nearby and joined a vigil.
Family members and mourners gather Saturday in the 8100 block of South Blackstone Avenue hours after an off-duty Chicago police officer was shot to death while returning to her South Side home.
Preston’s aunt Sonia Rawsk said she was a “wonderful” person with a bright future.
“She was a definite role model with a career path that just didn’t stop,” Rawsk said.
Preston was soon to graduate with a master’s degree in criminology from Loyola University Chicago, her family said. She previously earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and law enforcement administration from Illinois State University, where she met professor Charles Bell.
She was a “very engaged, very vocal student, very respectful of others’ opinion and just very passionate about making a difference and showing young people that policing is a profession that can make a difference in the community,” Bell said. “She was very aware of a lot of the problems that in her opinion had manifested in the Chicago community.”
He said the young officer was still working in patrol but “was looking forward to moving up in the ranks.”
“She was a reformer,” he said. “She saw a problem, and she was dedicated to making a difference.”
After a class trip to Holocaust sites in Germany and Poland in 2019, Preston said in an article published on the school website that she was determined to enter the police academy to help build trust between underrepresented communities and law enforcement.
“I know a big thing for our trip was finding voices for those who didn’t have a voice,” Preston said. “When I got back, I wanted to be an officer. I felt like I could be a person to fight for justice.”
At a news conference outside the hospital Saturday, a tearful Mayor Lori Lightfoot sent her condolences to the officer’s “shattered” family.
Interim Chicago police Supt. Eric Carter, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police officials at a news conference Saturday after the fatal shooting of an off-duty police officer.
“When I got the call this morning, I wasn’t just a mayor. I was a mom,” Lightfoot said. “I’m thinking about what the parents of this young officer are going to be feeling today.”
Interim police Supt. Eric Carter Carter’s daughter attended high school with Preston at UIC College Prep, and his wife coached their cheerleading team.
Carter asked for prayers for the officer, her family and “the men and women of the Chicago Police Department who sacrifice everything, including their lives.”
Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson called the shooting “a profound tragedy. My heart breaks for the family of the young officer who was murdered early this morning on her way home from work. I’m outraged and devastated by this horrific violence against a public servant, and I will do everything I can to support her family and the Chicago Police Department through this traumatic time. I pray that her killer is apprehended quickly so that justice may be served.”
Johnson said the overnight attack “underlines the fierce urgency of the public safety crisis in our city.”
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