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SOUTH ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis Metropolitan Departement Police officer was accidentally shot and killed Thursday morning in south St. Louis’ Carondelet neighborhood.

The shooting happened just after 1:00 a.m. in the 700 block of Dover Place near Leona Street.

According to authorities, a female officer was at the home of another officer when a gun accidentally was fired. The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately clear.

Durning a 2:30 a.m. press conference Chief John Hayden tells FOX2, two on-duty male police officers showed up at one of their homes during their shift. Thereafter an off-duty female police officer stopped by and was accidentally shot in the chest. She rushed to the hospital where she later died.

It is unclear at this hour which male officer fired the shot.

Her identity has not been released, but police said she was 24- years- old and had been with the department for a little over two years.

Meanwhile, both on-duty officers are 29-years-old have been with the department for nearly two years, Hayden said.

No other information has been released, the investigation is ongoing.

Police Union Business Manager Jeff Roorda released the following statement:

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the St. Louis Police Officers Association lost one our own early this morning in a tragic incident that is still under investigation. We know that the press and the public want to understand what happened. So do we. But for now, we wait; we wonder; and we weep. We ask that the media and the public respect the privacy of this young officer’s family, friends and co-workers as they mourn. The motto of the National Law Enforcement Memorial is, ‘It is not how these officers died that made them heroes, it is how they lived.’ That’s what we should focus on right now, how this officer lived. She served her community and her nation with dignity and courage both as a police officer and as a member of the military. That is how she lived, as a hero. And, for now, that is all anybody needs to know.

FOX2 will update this story as new information becomes available.

We are deeply saddened to announce that the officer transported to the hospital has succumbed to her injuries. We ask that you keep the officer’s family and the entire SLMPD in your thoughts and prayers as we mourn the loss of our officer and friend. pic.twitter.com/NGcU4tpXiU — St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) January 24, 2019