The officers responded to an apartment building where they found a man in a parking lot firing an AR-15-style weapon, he said at a news conference. A weapon that appeared to be a AK-15 was found in a nearby woods, according to Smith.
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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the gun is hard to trace.
Davis identified the gunman as Dayten Harper, 33.
The shooting comes a week after police shootings of two black men, one in Louisiana and the other in Minnesota, stoked outrage among many in the African-American community and protests around the country. “(It’s the) first time this has happened here in front of my house”, said Amami Clemen, a witness.
Police say at least two officers fired their weapons.
“When you’re met with gunfire as suddenly as our police officers were met”, Davis said, “he simply did not have the time to turn on his body camera”.
Officers, who Smith said initially thought there was more than one suspect involved, surrounded the building and searched the scene. He lamented that “there are guns like this all over the place” and that as the nation’s “conversation on guns drags on, “we’re lucky we don’t have four dead cops today”. Davis said that the shooting was not being described as an ambush. “We would be planning four funerals”, Davis said. Police rendered aid on a second-floor platform.
But the commissioner, Kevin Davis, repeatedly pointed out the dangers of the semiautomatic gun, which police displayed for reporters, and which he said fired.223 caliber bullets capable of piercing the protective vests worn by patrol officers.
There is no indication that the incident was related to a warning from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday that local gangs were targeting police, Davis said. The suspect was taken to a hospital, where he died. Harper had a long criminal history.
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The idea that the man was trying to lure officers to the scene with the gunfire is a “theory” police are looking into, Smith said. “He was firing that weapon and he turned that weapon toward officers and started firing the weapon toward officers and the officers returned fire”.
