Five police officers in Phoenix, Arizona, were shot and wounded, and four other officers were wounded by shrapnel, on Friday after responding to reports of gunfire inside a home. Four of the officers who were shot were trying to rush a baby to safety, officials said.
According to The Associated Press, the suspect was found dead in the home. Officials did not provide any additional details about how the suspect died.
A woman who was also present at the time of the shooting was critically injured.
Police Chief Jeri Williams said five of the officers shot during the incident were hospitalized. Four were recovering, he said, and the fifth officer was “seriously hurt but is on the road to recovery.”
Williams told reporters that a baby inside the home “at some point was placed in a carrier and placed outside.” Officers who approached the baby to get it away from the home were shot by the suspect who was still inside, KPNX reported.
The chief said the first officer on scene was shot and wounded “multiple times.”
“This is just one more example of the dangers that officers face every day keeping us and our community safe,” Williams said. “If I seem upset, I am. This is senseless. It does not need to happen and it continues to happen over and over again.”
No identities have been released. Officials are investigating the incident.
Last week, an active shooter fatally shot two cops before being apprehended at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Va. At the same time, a separate shooting incident took place outside a school in Richfield, Minn., leaving one student dead and one critically injured.
Bridgewater College President David Bushman said in an email to students that campus police officer John Painter and safety officer J.J. Jefferson died after being shot, Local Daily News-Record reported. Bushman called the officers “close friends, known to many of us as ‘the dynamic duo.’”
The shootings come on the same day CNN reported 13 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) had to lock down or postpone classes on Tuesday, the first day of Black History Month, due to bomb threats. At least one of the colleges, Howard University, received a bomb threat the day earlier on Monday.
