Two southern Indiana law enforcement officers were shot and wounded early Sunday during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect who fled a traffic stop on foot and fired at the officers before he was fatally shot, police said.
Both officers flown to a hospital in Indianapolis, where they are were in stable condition with injuries that are not life-threatening, said Sgt. John Perrine of Indiana State Police.
The man who fired at the officers was pronounced dead at a local hospital, he said. His name was not immediately released.
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The shooting occurred in the Lawrence County city of Mitchell, about 75 miles southwest of Indianapolis, after a county sheriff’s deputy pulled a vehicle over at a gas station along State Road 37 about 3:15 a.m. for a traffic violation, Perrine said.
Two Indiana police officers where wounded in a shootout. The shooting suspect was killed in the exchange.
That officer was soon joined by a second Lawrence County Sheriff’s deputy with a police dog and a Mitchell police officer, he said. After the police dog alerted officers to possible drugs inside the man’s car, the officers searched it and discovered narcotics.
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When officers tried to handcuff the man he fled on foot across State Road 37 into a grassy area. Once officers caught up with him, the man began to physically resist arrest before he pulled a handgun and fired at the officers “at point blank-range,” Perrine said in a news release.
The wounded officers were a Lawrence County Sherriff’s deputy and a Mitchell police officer. At least one of the officers was able to return fire, fatally wounding the man, Perrine said.
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State police are investigating the shooting and Perrine said they will be checking the officers’ body and dashboard cameras as part of the investigation.
