Police shoot armed-robbery suspect during sting

A man accused of robbing an undercover Columbus police officer during a sting operation at a complex of town houses on the Southeast Side on Wednesday night was shot by a SWAT officer who saw the man pull out a gun, police said.

The wounded suspect, Kyler Collier, 18, was taken in critical condition to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center shortly after he was shot around 8 p.m. in a parking lot off the 2800 block of Duvall Lane near Booty Drive. His condition was later upgraded to stable, police said.

Officer Robert Vass, 50, a 25-year veteran assigned to SWAT, was identified as the one who shot Collier.

Sgt. Chantay Boxill, a Columbus Division of Police spokeswoman, said SWAT was participating in an undercover operation in connection with a series of robberies of people who had arranged transactions through social-media websites.

A SWAT officer posing as a potential buyer had agreed to meet a suspect to exchange an item for cash, a news release said. Other SWAT officers provided cover during the exchange.

Collier pulled a gun on the undercover decoy officer during the exchange, and another officer shot Collier, Boxill said.

The suspect fled after he was shot, but officers pursued and eventually caught him, the release said.

A gun was recovered at the scene, Boxill said.

No officers were injured, the release said.

Vass has been involved in at least five prior incidents in which officers used their gun:

• Vass and Officer Lawrence Gauthney were accompanying Officer Christopher Journey when Journey shot and wounded a man who had refused to drop a gun in the Hilltop neighborhood on June 11, 2015. The wounded suspect survived.

• On Christmas Eve 2014, Vass was working undercover with Gauthney outside the 2shots Bar at 1571 Lockbourne Road when a man opened fire on a crowd. Both Vass and Gauthney fired at the suspect, but he fled, and no one was hit.

• In May 2012, Vass and another officer shot at a man who fired at police in the 900 block of South Champion Avenue.

• In December 2006, Vass fired two shots at a stolen car that had rammed a police cruiser.

• Vass also fired a shot at a stolen car after it had rammed a police wagon on the North Side in June 1999.