The police chief in Kansas City, Kansas, says the officer who died was shot several times through his window.
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Police initially received a call about gunshots on Tuesday afternoon, from a citizen who had spotted a burgundy colored auto, Zeigler said. Authorities say the attack wasn’t a planned ambush.
Police are still looking for those suspects.
Mayor Mark Holland also said it doesn’t appear that Melton’s death “was a planned ambush against police” and that the death is “another example of another criminal trying to escape arrest”.
In early May, detective Brad Lancaster was fatally shot near the Kansas Speedway, and Capt Melton served in the police honour guard at the funeral. This tragic loss, of our brother in blue and father to one of our own at Texas County, is inconceivable and weighs heavily on our hearts.
Police Chief Terry Zeigler said during a news conference that authorities have two young men in custody, but declined to give details about possible charges.
This latest Kansas City shooting comes just two days after a gunman in Baton Rouge fatally shot three officers there and wounded three others in an attack that police described as a “targeted” assassination of law enforcement officers.
Just before 9 p.m., KCK officers were notified an older Hispanic male had been shot in the head standing on his porch on 16 North Baltimore.
“Yet we all need to worry that the national climate may foster greater fear and potentially inflame otherwise normal interactions and turn them into tragedies”, Holland told the Kansas City Star.
Police employees were taking the items left outside the headquarters and bringing them to the lobby’s memorial.
Capt. Robert Melton was by himself searching for a suspect in a drive-by shooting when he drove up to someone who matched that person’s description just before 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Officials, nonetheless, expressed concern over anti-police rhetoric and the increase of tensions nationally over police-involved shootings. Before Melton could get out of his vehicle, the suspect opened fire and hit the officer multiple times, Tomasic said.
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Police said the person was being questioned along with another person suspected over the initial drive-by shooting. Within five minutes, officers – including the police captain – arrived on the scene and found several people immediately jumping out of a vehicle and fleeing from the scene.
