(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson offered his first public comments today about the shooting death of police Officer Luis Huesca, expressing condolences to his family while appearing to deflect questions about his administration's crime-fighting strategies.
Police say someone shot and killed Officer Huesca just before 3 a.m. Sunday as he returned home from work. He was reportedly still in his uniform when officers found him near the 3100 block of West 56th Street.
His 31st birthday would have been Tuesday.
At an unrelated appearance at O'Hare Airport this morning, the mayor told reporters that he met with Officer Huesca's mother and uncle yesterday.
"To see one of our fallen officers' body, as the family was preparing to go into the morgue, is one of the most difficult things I've ever done," the mayor said. "The type of heinous violence that continues to cause tremendous grief and turmoil has been a hardship over the course of decades now."
Frequent mayoral critic and Little Village Ald. Ray Lopez has pointed to data suggesting that ShotSpotter gunshot-detection technology, which the mayor is phasing out, helped alert police to Officer Huesca's death. When asked about that, Johnson did not specifically address the technology, instead reiterating the importance of his focus on the root causes of violence to correct decades of disinvestment in parts of the city.
"It can't be policing alone," said the mayor. "It's a failed strategy."
Last week, the mayor pointed to data suggesting that the vast majority of ShotSpotter alerts do not lead to criminal investigations.
The mayor also appeared to bristle at questions related to his absence at the public announcement of Officer Huesca's death by police Superintendent Larry Snelling and other top brass, explaining that he was meeting with the officer's family at that time.
"I spent time with the family because that's what a mayor does," Johnson said.
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