Mercy Hospital ordered to produce safety reports in 2018 shooting trial

CHICAGO — A panel of the Appellate Court of Illinois ordered this week Mercy Hospital and Medical Center will put out two reports on the hospital’s security protocols that were created after a December 2018 shooting that killed a pharmacy resident, a doctor and a Chicago police officer.

The order issued Wednesday requires Mercy to share the two reports with attorneys for Brian Less, the father of Dayna Less, the pharmacist who died in the shooting.

Brian Les sued Mercy about a year after the shooting. During the investigation, Mercy said it hired two experts to review the hospital’s security measures after the shooting.

“The plaintiff tried to determine, among other things, how and why [the shooter, Juan] Lopez was undetected on hospital grounds for over an hour and a half, then re-entered the hospital through an unlocked door minutes later after firing several shots in the Mercy Hospital parking lot (killing his first victim in full view of hospital security) and how and why Mercy Hospital Security failed to issue a ‘code silver’ to alert people to an active shooter until Dayna was dying on the hospital lobby floor,” the appeals court panel wrote.

Earlier this year, a Cook County Circuit Court judge ordered Mercy to turn over the reports to Brian Les, but Mercy appealed, arguing the reports were privileged and not subject to disclosure. The panel of the Court of Appeal disagreed with this.

An attorney for Mercy did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Lopez, the shooter, was previously engaged to Dr. Tamara O’Neill. Shortly after the shooting, police said Lopez approached O’Neill in the hospital parking lot, where he then killed her. Lopez shot and killed Dayna Less and CPD Officer Samuel Jimenez. Lopez was also killed in the hospital.