An armed man waiting on a dead-end street shot and hurt two Ohio police officers Wednesday while they parked their patrol cars in an undeveloped industrial park to eat lunch. Another officer who drove to the scene of the shooting to help them was also shot and seriously hurt, officials said.
“He was shot on scene and was pronounced dead,” said Michael Failing, who is acting as police chief in Lorain, which is about 25 miles west of Cleveland. Failing said that the man “had an arsenal of weapons with him,” but he didn’t give any more information than that and said that the information that was known about the shooting was just the beginning.
What happened is being looked into by the police chief in nearby Elyria, James Welsh. He told reporters earlier that Lorain cops were ambushed by a man with a high-powered rifle, and that police fired back.
Welsh said it wasn’t clear right away if the suspect, a 28-year-old man from Lorain who Welsh and Failing didn’t name, shot himself or was killed by police. Welsh said he thinks the man did it by himself.
Failing said that two of the cops had been shot more than once. A statement from the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police hours after the shooting said that they were in serious condition after being flown to a trauma center.
Failing said that the other cop was shot in the hand and was treated at a nearby hospital.
He said the cops who were ambushed had just bought pizza and parked next to each other to eat it. He said that responding police rushed the hurt people to get medical help by putting them in patrol cars.
Wednesday, the police didn’t say anything about what might have led to the killing.
Mayor Jack Bradley said, “It’s a sad day in the city of Lorain, but we’re a strong city, and we’re going to move forward.”
He said that cops would be able to get help from a counselor to deal with what had happened.
Bradley also said that he had talked to Gov. Mike DeWine, who had offered his backing. The governor said in a separate statement that the shooting “reminds us that police officers risk their lives every day to keep their communities safe.”
