Mo. Officer Critically Wounded in Fatal Shooting of Suspect

A suspect was killed and a police officer was seriously wounded in a shooting Wednesday in Independence, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Officers responded to the shooting before 12 p.m. in the 2400 block of South Northern Boulevard. The officer who was shot was critically injured and taken to a hospital.

Sgt. Andrew Bell, a spokesman for the highway patrol, said about 11:30 a.m., two Independence Police Department officers responded to a nearby residence after receiving a tip that a "person may have been wanted for something." Bell did not detail what the tip was but said examining it would be part of the highway patrol's investigation into the shooting.

The officers were then met by a suspect who fired a handgun at them, striking one of them, Bell said. The other officer returned fire and shot the suspect, who died at the scene, he said.

Bell described the suspect as a white male. His name has not been released. The highway patrol has not said what crime the person was suspected of.

"The nature of the call will have to be examined a little bit more in detail," Bell said of the tip. "The dispatch that took the call, that entered the call — those are going to be some ways to look into that to exactly find out, 'What kind of tip was this?'"

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, investigators with the highway patrol, Kansas City police and federal agents responded to the scene. A helicopter hovered overhead as investigators combed the area searching for evidence.

Durrell Johnson was driving by when he heard the gunfire. Talking to reporters, he described them as "multiple gunshots" that occurred "over and over" again.

Another witness, Jaron Marcel, 29, was standing in front of the nearby First Church of the Nazarene when he heard gunshots.

"You just heard like a ripple of shots," Marcel said. "Like maybe 40 to 60."

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