CHICAGO — As a domestic confrontation spilled out onto a Southwest Side sidewalk on March 1, 2023, emergency dispatchers did what they do every day and assigned officers to hustle to the scene.

Among those who responded was 32-year-old Chicago police Officer Andres Vásquez Lasso.

But in a reminder of how dangerous domestic calls can be for officers, the situation escalated into more violence and Vásquez Lasso was shot and killed, prosecutors said, while children at a nearby playground took cover under a slide.

More than two years later, the officer’s accused killer is scheduled to stand trial, with jury selection set to begin Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. Barring any last-minute delays, Steven Montano, 21, will face a jury on charges of murder and other felonies in the attack in the 5200 block of South Spaulding Avenue.

The case goes to trial as the Chicago Police Department is still mourning and grappling with the fatal shooting of Officer Krystal Rivera by a fellow police officer on June 5, the first CPD officer to die of friendly fire in nearly 40 years. The case is also the first involving a slain officer to go to a jury since one of Officer Ella French’s killers was convicted at trial last year.

Vásquez Lasso was remembered by friends and family at his funeral as a loyal friend and confidant. He immigrated to the United States from Colombia when he was 18 years old and later enrolled in college and joined the Chicago Police Department.

“(He) gave up his life serving what he loved most: the police,” the Rev. Andrés Beltrán, a family friend, said in Spanish during the homily at his funeral. “And he leaves us, and we say goodbye to him, not only as a Colombian but as a friend, as a colleague, as a family man.”

During his final act as a police officer, prosecutors said, Vásquez Lasso backed up his fellow officers in aiding Montano’s 37-year-old girlfriend who left the residence through a side door and called 911 after Montano, during an argument, said he would get his gun.

Montano also grabbed her phone and tried to stop her from calling for help, prosecutors alleged during a 2023 hearing.

When officers arrived, they saw Montano jump out of a window and run away with what appeared to be a gun, prosecutors said.

As Montano ran past Sawyer Elementary School, according to prosecutors, he was spotted and pursued by Vásquez Lasso.

Montano turned toward the officer, prosecutors said, and both fired weapons. Vásquez Lasso hit Montano in the mouth area, and Montano shot the officer in the head, arm and leg as children and others in a nearby playground took cover.

The shooting was captured on Vásquez Lasso’s body camera, prosecutors have said.

That means jurors will likely repeatedly see the shooting occur, which has become a hallmark of trials involving police shootings.

CPD began testing body-worn cameras for patrol officers in 2015 and later expanded their use as part of broad reform efforts spurred by the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014.

By the end of 2017, body cameras — a tool for both accountability and investigation — were in use for all Chicago Police Department patrol officers, which allows jurors and courtroom observers to watch, to some extent, a police shooting unfold.

The SAFE-T Act further broadened body-camera use across Illinois, requiring that all police officers in the state be outfitted with cameras by 2025.

Vásquez Lasso was one of two police officers shot to death in 2023 in attacks considered to be on-duty. About two months after he was killed, Chicago police Officer Aréanah Preston was slain as she returned to her Avalon Park home from a late-night shift.

In a twist of fate, one of Vásquez Lasso’s friends, Officer Luis Huesca, was shot and killed about a year later while heading home from his shift early in the morning.

In a remembrance video for his friend, Huesca praised Vásquez Lasso — before he himself was killed — as “one of those guys that actually deserved this star.”

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