Detroit officer critical after shooting; suspect killed

DETROIT (AP) A Detroit police officer responding to a call about a domestic dispute was critically injured when the man answering the door shot him in the head. The officer and his partner fired at the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Police Chief James Craig said the officer, a 14-year veteran of the department, was in surgery early Monday with a single bullet wound. The police department’s Twitter page reported that the officer was in “very critical condition but is alive.”

Craig said the officer and his partner, who had only been on the force for about six months, went to the home on the city’s west side after a woman called to report a domestic incident around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. When they knocked on the door, the suspect – armed with a .25-caliber semiautomatic rifle – began firing, he said.

Craig said preliminary reports indicated that the suspect who killed was not involved in the domestic dispute.

“Domestic violence calls tend to be the most high-risk calls officers handle each and every day,” Craig said during a media briefing outside the hospital where the officer was being treated.

The chief said he had a conversation with the younger officer, who is just a few months out of the police academy, and that he was “handling it reasonably well.”

Craig said it was the eighth time since September that a Detroit officer had been injured or killed in a shooting.