The man suspected of killing Officer Ronald Tarentino Jr, a 42-year-old father of three, has died.
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Tarentino’s wake will be on Thursday from 2 p.m.to 7 p.m.at St. Joseph’s Church in Charlton.
Zambrano burst out of a bedroom closet and opened fire on officers Sunday evening as they approached him inside a duplex apartment in Oxford, investigators said.
Police spotted Zambrano’s vehicle parked in the back of the residence. Searchers later determined he crawled along an internal passageway into 33 Watch St. through a hole in the cellar wall of No. 31 that Procopio said was “roughly the size of a pizza box”.
“Seconds later, a hand holding a firearm thrust out from behind some clothing and fired multiple shots at the troopers, one of which struck one of the troopers in the shoulder”, Procopio said.
A state trooper reportedly wounded by Zambrano during the shootout is on track to make a full recovery, after undergoing surgery at UMass Hospital-Lakeside in Worcester.
Zambrano was killed after exchanging gunfire with police in Oxford, Massachusetts.
State officials said Zambrano had been released from the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley on November 1, 2013, after serving a seven-year sentence on charges including cocaine trafficking, two counts of assault and battery on a police officer and two counts of resisting arrest.
The suspect in the fatal shooting of a MA police officer had been arrested by state police last week without incident.
“He was an outstanding guy, and we’re going to miss him quite an very bad lot”, Sluckis said.
Zambrano was booked at the Holden Barracks, state police said in a statement Monday, and would have been scheduled for arraignment at Worcester District Court.
T-shirts are now being sold in honor of Officer Tarentino.
This undated identification photo released by the Massachusetts State Police shows Jorge Zambrano, killed Sunday during an exchange of gunfire with police at an apartment building in Oxford, Mass. Zambrano had been suspected in the shooting death of Auburn, Mass., Police Officer Ronald Tarentino during a traffic stop early this morning.
The identify of the State Trooper has not been released.
Flowers, rosary beads and other articles are placed as a memorial for slain Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino outside the police station, Monday, May 23, 2016, in Auburn, Mass. Tarentino was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Auburn, authorities said. A person with the name Jorge Zambrano was arrested in April for assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and driving with a suspended license. At the same time a year ago, 14 officers had been shot and killed, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund. Zambrano stopped his vehicle and complied with the trooper, who arrested him on the charges without incident, according to police. He arrested without incident for a subsequent offense of operating a motor vehicle without a license, driving an unregistered motor vehicle and attempting to hide his license plate.
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Until Sunday night, Zambrano remained at large, and a massive search unfolded in the surrounding area. He called Tarentino a “dedicated and fearless public servant”. Officers quickly returned fire and killed Zambrano. It’s the first fatal shooting of a police officer in MA since the death of MIT Officer Sean Collier in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings three years ago.
