Chicago's police superintendent is "at a loss for words" after the teenage son of a city police officer was shot and killed while home from college to visit his family, police said.

Arshell Dennis III was killed early Sunday morning when a gunman opened fire while he was sitting on a porch in Chicago's Wrightwood neighborhood, the Chicago Police Department said.

The 19-year-old was a junior studying journalism at St. John's University in New York City, the family said in a statement, according to ABC station WLS. He was planning to return to New York on Sunday, the police said.

The teen's father is longtime Chicago police officer Arshell Dennis of the police department's organized crime bureau.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who worked with Dennis in the early 1990s, said he is "at a loss for words for the amount of grief he and his family are dealing with."

"Officer Dennis dedicated his life to make this city safer, and Arshell was a good kid, making his parents proud and studying for a promising future," Johnson said in a statement.



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Another young man, 20, was also shot and was hospitalized in serious condition, police said.

No arrests have been made, a police representative told ABC News this morning.

"As always, the men and women of the [Chicago Police Department] will stop at nothing to find who was responsible and bring a sense of closure and justice to Officer Dennis and all families affected by violence," Johnson said. "But in order to address the violence, we must change the way the criminal justice system treats the reckless, repeat gun offenders who are causing this violence and send a clear message that when you are involved in gun crimes you will be held accountable."