Shooting leaves Memphis officer dead

MEMPHIS — A Tennessee police chief made an impassioned plea to her community to help stop gun violence after a Memphis police officer and an 18-year-old suspect were killed as officers investigated a suspicious vehicle early Friday.

A second suspect, who is 17, was in critical condition, and another Memphis police officer was injured but not in critical condition, interim Police Director C.J. Davis said. A third officer was grazed and treated at the scene.

Davis identified the officer who was killed as Joseph McKinney.

The 18-year-old suspect, whom Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy identified in a news release as Jaylen Lobley, was arrested last month in a stolen vehicle with an illegally modified semiautomatic weapon that converted it to what Davis described as a “fully automatic machine gun.”

Mulroy said in a news release that a Shelby County judicial commissioner made the decision to release Lobley on his own recognizance — with conditions including reporting and curfew — and did so despite prosecutors strongly arguing against it.

Davis said she did not know what prompted the original call reporting the suspicious vehicle around 2 a.m. The officers were fired upon when they approached it and they returned fire, she said.

The suspects drove off but stopped a few blocks away, police said. One suspect was taken into custody immediately. The second fled but was found nearby, police said.

Police have contacted the prosecutor’s office and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Davis said.