Woman with knife fatally shot by Chicago police in North Center
FOX 32 NEWS - A woman with a knife was shot and killed by police Friday night. It happened around 5:45 PM at the intersection of Western and Irving Park.
The silver steak knife with a blade about four inches long was still lying in the street as Chicago Police and the Independent Police Review Authority investigated what happened. Police say it all started inside a CVS Pharmacy.
“We had an individual, a female inside brandishing a weapon, threatening employees,” said Deputy Chief Al Nagode, Area North Patrol.
When police arrived, employees in the CVS pointed them to a bus stop nearby where the woman was standing. Police confronted her, and they say she made threatening statements while still holding the knife. When she refused to drop it, officers took their first action to try and disarm her.
“One of the officers uses a less than lethal tactic, deploys his taser with no effect. Actually deploys the taser a second time again with no effect,” Nagode said.
He could not explain why that happened, but heavy winter clothing could have prevented the tasers from penetrating enough to disable the woman.
Police say the officers did not have body cameras, but their squad car did have a dash cam which captured part or all of what happened and the officers were wearing their microphones.
Witnesses were startled by what happened.
“I live across the street and I was going to pick up our Friday pizza and then I just heard all of the police sirens in the police car is just zooming by and then I thought I heard pop, pop, pop,” said Connie Wojo.
Police said the officers shot when the woman continued to threaten them with the knife.
“The subject continues to make threatening statements to the officers and actually takes the knife and lunges at both officers. It is at that time the decision was made that they had to utilize their weapons. They each fired a round striking the subject,” Nagode said.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office identified the woman as 55-year-old Michelle Robey. She lived in the Hollywood Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. After the shooting, she was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The two officers have been placed on 30 days administrative leave as is standard protocol in police-involved shootings.