Thread: Murder suspect shoots officer in police headquarters

Chief: Murder suspect shoots Jackson, Miss., officer in police headquarters; both found dead

By Associated Press, Apr 05, 2013 12:28 AM EDT
AP Updated: Thursday, April 4, 5:28 PM

JACKSON, Miss. — Police say a murder suspect fired at an officer inside the Jackson, Miss., police headquarters and that both have been found dead.
Police Chief Rebecca Coleman told reporters Thursday the suspect had been arrested and was being interviewed on the third floor when the shooting happened. She says those inside heard shots fired and when other officers entered the room, they found both the officer and suspect dead.

Police spokeswoman Colendula Green says both were shot.
Neither the name of the officer nor the suspect has been released.
The headquarters is blocked off and surrounded by crime tape. Law enforcement and Jackson city officials rushed to the scene.
City spokesman Chris Mims says the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation will take over the investigation. He says the move is standard procedure.
　
　
　
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/chief-murder-suspect-shoots-jackson-miss-officer-in-police-headquarters-both-found-dead/2013/04/04/b2f93cf4-9d87-11e2-9219-51eb8387e8f1_story.html

. . . The officer was identified as Det. Eric Smith, 40, who was assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division and had been with the department since 1995.
Late Thursday, police identified the murder suspect as Jeremy Powell, 23. Both the detective and the suspect had been shot multiple times.
Police said Powell was in the process of being arrested in the killing Monday of Christopher Alexander. News outlets reported that the 20-year-old Alexander's body was found Monday near a Jackson street and he had been stabbed in the neck.
City police spokesman Chris Mims described Smith as "a decorated detective and well-respected law-enforcement person throughout the state of Mississippi."
"He was in the processing of questioning that suspect," Mims said of the detective. "Other officers in the police department heard gunshots ring out and when they went to the interview room, discovered that both the suspect and the detective were deceased."
The police headquarters was on lockdown Thursday night, Mims said.
Jackson City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba was in police headquarters with the mayor afterward and said Smith was shot by the suspect. He did not know how the suspect ended up dead.
"I understand there may have been more than one police officer in the room," Lumumba said outside the police building.
The headquarters was blocked off and surrounded by crime tape. Law enforcement and Jackson city officials rushed to the scene.
Mims said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation, which is standard procedure.
"This is a very tragic situation," he said. "The entire city of Jackson and the Jackson Police Department family are all hurting. We are asking for the public's patience while we find out why this tragic incident happened and how it happened."
At least 30 Jackson Police and Hines County Sheriff's office vehicles were haphazardly parked across multiple, major downtown Jackson streets. Officers were visibly shaken, wiping their eyes, and Assistant Chief Lee Vance could be seen comforting Chief Rebecca Coleman at one point, putting his arm around her shoulder outside the building. A 2008 photo on the department's website shows a smiling, fit Smith, in a shirt and tie, accepting a certificate of commendation on behalf of a detective, with Coleman and Vance on each side of him.
Lumumba, who is a lawyer, said Smith was fairly new to being a homicide detective and that he first met Smith in the late 1990s. The then-officer had testified on some of Lumumba's cases.
"I had great respect for his work and his integrity," Lumumba said. He added that Smith's stepson had played basketball on an Amateur Athletic Union team that Lumumba worked with.
"Eric helped take young men all over the country," the councilman said. "He's a real man in every sense of the word."
Mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr. also addressed the officer's death.
"Detective Smith was an excellent officer in all respects," the mayor said. "I want everyone to keep the Smith family in their prayers and in their thoughts."
Lumumba said that Smith was married and had another son.
A monument outside police headquarters lists 14 officers killed in the line of duty — before today.
　
　
　
http://news.yahoo.com/murder-suspect-shoots-miss-cop-inside-police-hq-015304181.html

Mississippi officer was killed with his own gun: police

By Emily LeCoz | Reuters – 16 hrs ago


View Photo
Reuters/Reuters - Jeremy Powell is shown in this Mississippi Department of Public Safety photo released on April 5, 2013. REUTERS/Mississippi Department of Public Safety/Handout

By Emily LeCoz
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A murder suspect who killed a veteran Mississippi police detective at police headquarters in Jackson on Thursday wrangled with the officer during questioning and shot him with his own gun before killing himself, police said on Friday.
The 23-year-old suspect was being interviewed in the course of a murder investigation, according to police.
"The detective, Eric Smith, was overpowered and shot with his own weapon, and the apparent shooter, Jeremy Powell, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound," said Warren Strain, spokesman for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
Strain said the incident occurred within "a matter of seconds, not minutes or hours." He could not say if the two men were alone at the time.
Great attention is being paid to attacks on U.S. law enforcement officials since two prosecutors from Kaufman County, Texas, and the Colorado prisons chief were killed this year in what appeared to be targeted attacks.
A West Virginia sheriff was also shot to death this week while sitting in his police SUV.
Smith, 40, who had almost 20 years with the police, was married to a fellow Jackson police officer and they have two teenage sons.
Powell's mother, LaShon Powell, said her son "was a good son ... the type of person who would give somebody the shirt off his back."
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 29 officers have been killed in the line of duty since April 5, 2012, an increase of 21 percent from the same period a year earlier.
http://news.yahoo.com/mississippi-officer-killed-own-gun-police-233658186.html