2 officers, suspect die in N.Y. shootout
LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — Two law enforcement officers were fatally shot while looking for a driver who fled a traffic stop in upstate New York, authorities said Monday. The shooter was also killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.
The shootout took place Sunday outside a house in the Liverpool residential neighborhood north of Syracuse, claiming the lives of Onondaga County sheriff’s office Lt. Michael Hoosock and Syracuse police officer Michael Jensen, authorities said. The slain shooter was identified by the local district attorney as Christopher Murphy, 33.
Jensen had attempted earlier to pull over a car, but the driver refused to stop and sped off, according to Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick.
The police officers tracked the license plate to the address in nearby Liverpool, requesting assistance from the sheriff’s office.
Officers were inspecting the vehicle and moving around the house when they heard what sounded like “a gun being manipulated,” so they took cover, Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile said during a news conference on Monday afternoon.
Inside the house, Murphy had told a friend police were not going to arrest him and that the friend needed to leave. The friend ran from the house and was apprehended, authorities said.
Hoosock, a 17-year veteran of the force with a wife and three young children, was looking for cover behind a maple tree in an adjacent yard when he was ambushed. Jensen, on the force for less than three years, was struck after the shooter went to the front of the house and fired on Syracuse police officers with an AR-15-style rifle.
Hoosock, Jensen and Murphy were brought to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. All three were pronounced dead at the hospital, Cecile said.