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Two southern Indiana law enforcement officers were shot and wounded early Sunday during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect who fled a traffic stop on foot and fired at the officers before he was fatally shot, police said.
Both officers were flown to a hospital in Indianapolis, where they are in stable condition with injuries that are not life-threatening, said Sgt. John Perrine of Indiana State Police.
The man who fired at the officers was pronounced dead at a local hospital, he said. His name was not immediately released.
The shooting occurred in the Lawrence County city of Mitchell, about 75 miles southwest of Indianapolis, after a county sheriff’s deputy pulled a vehicle over at a gas station along State Road 37 about 3:15 a.m. for a traffic violation, Perrine said.
That officer was soon joined by a second Lawrence County Sheriff’s deputy with a police dog and a Mitchell police officer, he said. After the police dog alerted officers to possible drugs inside the man’s car, the officers searched it and discovered narcotics.
When officers tried to handcuff the man, he fled on foot across State Road 37 into a grassy area. Once officers caught up with him, the man began to physically resist arrest before he pulled a handgun and fired at the officers “at point blank-range,” Perrine said in a news release.
The wounded officers were a Lawrence County Sherriff’s deputy and a Mitchell police officer. At least one of the officers was able to return fire, fatally wounding the man, Perrine said.
State police are investigating the shooting and Perrine said they will be checking the officers’ body and dashboard cameras as part of the investigation.
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