A man wanted for questioning in the murder of a college student shot three police officers in Kansas City, Missouri, on Sunday during a series of firefights that began at a motel and ended with his death when he bolted from a house with his rifle blazing, authorities said.
The shooting erupted just after noon at a motel in the city where undercover and tactical officers were conducting an investigation into the robbery and killing at a restaurant last week of a 25-year-old University of Missouri-Kansas City student, police said.
Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith said detectives had been conducting surveillance on a person of interest in the July 6 murder and had followed him to the Sky-Vue Motel on Highway 40 on the east side of the city, reported ABC News.
“Our officers then engaged with the person that they were trying to surveil and there was gunfire,” Smith told reporters. “At that point two of our officers were shot.”
The suspected gunman, armed with a rifle, fled the scene in a vehicle with a second individual, police said. Officers chased the vehicle to a residential neighborhood.
The armed suspect ran from the vehicle, barricaded himself in a home in the area and fired on officers as they approached the residence, Smith said. A third detective was wounded in the firefight, hit in the forearm by a bullet.
He said all three wounded officers were being treated in a hospital for “non-life-threatening injuries… We then engaged with the suspect several times.”
He said the suspect came charging out of the house allegedly firing his rifle at officers, who returned fire shooting the gunman. He said multiple shots were fired in at least three different gunfights with the suspect.
The suspected shooter, whose name was not immediately released, was declared dead at the scene by the Kansas City Fire Department.
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