One police officer killed, another injured in shooting

One Birmingham police officer was killed and another critically wounded in a shooting early Sunday as the officers questioned two people suspected of trying to break into cars in Alabama’s largest city, authorities said.

Two suspects are in custody, one of whom was shot and is receiving medical treatment, police said.

Police identified the officer who was fatally shot as Sgt. Wytasha Carter, 44, a member of the department since 2011. The names of the wounded officer and the suspects were not immediately released.

Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith said the officers had approached the two suspects just before 2 a.m. outside a downtown Birmingham nightclub, after a plainclothes officer spotted one of them checking door handles on cars parked outside the venue. Smith said one suspect opened fire after being confronted by the officers. that “doctors succeeded in reanimating the heart of the seriously injured Mayor Pawel Adamowicz and there is hope, but his condition is very difficult.”

Polish broadcaster TVN said the assailant shouted from the stage that he had been wrongly imprisoned under a previous national government led by a party to which the mayor formerly belonged. The suspected attacker, 27, was arrested. A police spokesman said the attacker gained access to the area with a media badge.

Adamowicz, 53, has been mayor of the Baltic port city since 1998. He was part of the democratic opposition born in Gdansk under the leadership of Lech Walesa during the 1980s. As mayor, he has been a progressive voice, supporting LGBT rights and tolerance for minorities. He marched in last year’s gay pride parade, a rare action for a mayor in Poland.

Drunken-driving laws face Republican resistance

With a new Democratic ally in the governor’s office, a handful of Republican lawmakers are pushing for Wisconsin to join the rest of the country and criminalize first-offense drunken driving. But powerful Republican opponents already are lining up against the idea, calling it impractical and too expensive.

“We want to feel like we’re really being strict on drunk drivers,” said Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee and an opponent of criminalizing first offense. “But it’s not about punishing that person that made that poor choice. It’s about directing them to make good choices.”

At a time when some states have talked about lowering their DUI limit — Utah just set its threshold at a national low of 0.05 percent blood alcohol content — Wisconsin remains the only state in the nation that treats a first offense as a civil violation akin to a speeding ticket rather than a crime.