US shootings kill four, wound three, including toddler, police officer

Four people have been killed and four more injured, including a toddler and a police officer, in separate shooting incidents in the mid-western city of Chicago and the western city of Seattle.

In an early afternoon shooting on Saturday at a home in Chicago's far South Side neighborhood of Fernwood, four individuals were found killed and two others, including a two-year old child, wounded when police responded to a phone call that said several people had been shot, a police spokesman stated as cited by local press reports.

Four individuals were pronounced dead at the scene following the dispatch of at least five ambulances to site, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Jeff Lyle, who added that one of the wounded was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and the small child was also transported to another area hospital.

In a separate shooting at a funeral home in West Side of Chicago, a 21-year-old man was seriously wounded nearly 10 minutes before the deadly attack in Fernwood, local authorities announced.

Police also stated that no one has yet been arrested for either of the shooting attacks as investigations were continuing. It did not cite any motives for the incidents.

This is while in the western state of Washington, a police officer suffered a gunshot wound to the head while investigating a shooting incident in another major city of Seattle, local press outlets reported Friday.

The officer was identified as 61-year-old Mike McClaughry, who reportedly remains in critical condition at a Seattle hospital.

A 44-year-old repeat felon, identified as Ernesto Lee Rivas, was taken into custody following an hour-long standoff at a home in the Mount Vernon neighborhood north of Seattle, authorities said.

Police officials further added that two juveniles were also detained in connection to the officer’s shooting and were ordered held on $500,000 bail each by local prosecutors.

According to press reports, McClaughry was shot when he was canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses to a report of another shooting Thursday evening, in which the victim was grazed by a bullet.

The shooting came just over two weeks after a police officer in the Seattle suburb of Tacoma was killed while responding to a domestic violence call. Officer Reginald Gutierrez, 45, was fatally shot on November 30. The suspected gunman was killed by a sheriff's marksman, ending an 11-hour standoff.

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