CARBONDALE, Kan. (AP) — Four law enforcement officers were shot Saturday morning while responding to a call about domestic violence at a home in a rural area south of Topeka, Kansas.
A male suspect died from gunshot wounds at the home north of Carbondale, leaders of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and state Highway Patrol said. One other male was injured and taken to a hospital and is in stable condition, they said.
The shooting was around 10:30 a.m. Three Osage County sheriff’s deputies and one Kansas Highway Patrol trooper were shot, the KBI and the patrol leaders said. The three deputies were taken to a Topeka hospital, while the Highway Patrol trooper was transferred from that hospital to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.
“After being on scene less than 10 minutes, gunfire erupted,” patrol Superintendent Erik Smith said during a news conference.
Carbondale is a town of about 1,300 people about 16 miles (26 kilometers) south of Topeka, the Kansas state capital, off Interstate 75.
The KBI and the Highway Patrol did not release the names of the officers who were shot and did not discuss their conditions. The name of the suspect also wasn’t released.
The shooting stunned neighbors John and Heather Roberts, who live about a mile north of where the it occurred, on the same two-lane road. They never sensed any problem in any of the family members, such as drugs, alcohol abuse or violence, and they said a woman who lived in the home gave children she knew Christian books.
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They said it is not uncommon to see law enforcement vehicles on the road outside their home because they live at the line between Osage County, home to Carbondale, and Shawnee County, home to Topeka, and vehicles turn around there or the counties exchange prisoners.
John Roberts said he was putting siding on his barn when two law enforcement vehicles flew down the road Saturday morning.
“Both of them were running, I would say, well over 100 miles an hour as they went by,” he said. “Then the city of Topeka officers started going by. That’s when I started to really get concerned.”
He said the person believed to be the suspect visited the shop he has at his home to return tools. He said many families in the area own guns because hunting is a common hobby, and that was the case with this family.
“I love the family. They’re great people,” Heather Roberts said, adding that she and her husband are praying for the wounded officers, too.
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Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.
