MBI: Robbery suspect injured in officer-involved shooting
One person was injured in an early morning officer-involved shooting Saturday following a high-speed chase inside the city limits.
The Starkville Police Department said no officers were injured during the incident, which ended in a wooded area between South Wedgewood Road and Turnberry Lane.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation and had most of the two neighborhoods blocked off as a crime scene on Saturday morning.
MBI spokesman Warren Strain told the SDN Saturday the incident started when the unidentified male suspect committed a
robbery at a Sprint Mart on Highway 12 early Saturday morning, before leading officers on a high-speed pursuit through one of the city’s wealthiest areas.
Strain said officers followed
the suspect down South Montgomery Street before turning onto South Wedgewood Road - a dead end residential street with upscale homes on the fringe of the Starkville Country Club golf course.
After making the turn onto South Wedgewood Road,
the suspect then took the car off of the road in the neighborhood and drove through a heavily wooded area before hitting a tree. The back yard area of least one house on Turnberry Lane - a residential street off South Montgomery Street near where the crash occurred - was blocked off
with police caution tap following the incident.
Strain said at one point during the incident, officers exited their patrol vehicle before the suspect attempted to run them over. Once the suspect tried to hit the officers with his vehicle, the officers discharged their weapons and injured the suspect.
The suspect was treated for injuries at OCH Regional Medical Center before being airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. No update has been given as to the condition of the suspect.
“Right now it’s early on and of course they will process the
vehicle and scene and that will take a little time,” Strain said. “We have a positive ID, but we want to talk to next of kin just to make sure they are aware of the situation before we release his name.”
The identities of the responding officers have not been released at this time.