Police officer shot in Sunnyside neighborhood

A Denver police officer was shot in the leg late Saturday night in Denver’s Sunnyside neighborhood, prompting an hours-long manhunt that ended early Sunday morning.

The officer underwent emergency surgery and was in stable condition Sunday afternoon, Denver police said.

The officer was shot just before 11 p.m. as he approached a home in the 4200 block of Alcott Street in Denver’s Sunnyside neighborhood, Division Chief Ron Thomas said at a 4 a.m. news conference. The officer and others were responding to a call about a person on a porch “that they did not belong at,” Thomas said.

He said the officers were fired on as they approached the porch, but later said he did not know whether the officers spoke to the individual or made contact with the person before the shooting started.

“One officer was struck and went down at that location,” Thomas said.

The other officers helped the wounded officer and called for an ambulance, which took the wounded officer to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.

The suspect escaped during the aftermath of the shooting. Police shut down a several-block radius in Sunnyside and searched people’s yards with dogs.

Several people were detained, but police said on Twitter around 8 a.m. Sunday that there was “no arrest information to release at this time.”

The search of the neighborhood ended and the area was open to the public Sunday morning.