A domestic violence suspect shot and killed three police officers and wounded two more in Pennsylvania on Wednesday before one of the officers he shot killed him.
According to CNN, the suspect, who has not been named, was seen stalking the rural farmhouse home of his ex-girlfriend in York County. She spotted him on Tuesday in a nearby cornfield and called police.
Northern York Regional Police obtained an arrest warrant and a restraining order but were unable to locate him Tuesday night, officials said. They returned to the farmhouse the next day, and the suspect, wearing camouflage, opened fire on them from the cornfield, killing three officers.
The killer then started moving toward the farmhouse, where he encountered York County sheriff’s deputies and again opened fire, striking two of them. One returned fire and killed him.
“The grief will be unbearable, but we will bear it,” said Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris at a news conference on Wednesday.
Investigators have not named the police officers killed in Wednesday’s shooting. Paris said at the news conference that the two wounded deputies were in critical but stable condition, as CrimeOnline reported.
State police are handling the investigation. Investigators have not said what type of weapon the killer used, but a witness reported hearing about 30 shots.
“It was just continuous,” Davd Miller said. “Lots of shots, more than what I could count.”
It was the second fatal shooting of York County law enforcement this year. West York Patrolman Andrew W. Duarte died in a shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital’s ICU in April when a gunman held staffers hostage and fired at hospital police before multiple law enforcement agencies responded.
York County District Attorney Tim Barker said that an investigation revealed the Duarte was killed and another officer wounded by a police shotgun blast during the incident.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, speaking at Wednesday’s press conference, said the shooting “isn’t okay.”
“We need to do better as a society,” the governor said. “We need to help the people who think that picking up a gun, picking up a weapon is the answer to resolving disputes. We need to do better when it comes to mental health. We need to do better when it comes to looking out for those in need so we don’t have to deal with tragedies like this.”
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[Featured image: Wednesday’s gunman opened fire from a cornfield, where he had been spotted the day before stalking his ex-girlfriend. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)]
