3 police officers are killed in shooting in southern Pennsylvania

Three police officers were fatally shot and two others were seriously injured Wednesday while trying to serve a warrant in a rural part of York County, Pennsylvania, state police officials said.

The two who were injured in the shooting were in critical but stable condition at an area hospital, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, Col. Christopher Paris, said at a news conference Wednesday evening.

Paris said the shooter was fatally shot by the police.

The killings drew the attention of federal and state officials, and a visit by the governor. But it left its deepest mark on the residents of this county of farms in southeast Pennsylvania. Just seven months earlier, a 30-year-old police officer in York County was shot and killed after he responded to a hostage situation in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

“For the second time in less than a year, York County is a community in mourning,” the county commissioners said in a statement. “We ask all York Countians to, once again, lift each other up and support each other as we grieve together as one united community.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro arrived in the area within hours of the shooting and said he met with families of the officers who were killed. At a news conference, he also mentioned Andrew Duarte, the officer who had been killed earlier in the year.

“It’s an extraordinary thing that these law enforcement families do,” the governor said. “They support the individual who puts on the uniform and runs toward danger. They’re there for them when they leave in the morning, and they pray throughout the day that they will come home at night.”

Shapiro, a Democrat, also said that he had spoken earlier with Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, with whom he had worked when they were both state attorneys general. He said that it “meant a lot to me that she reached out to offer her support and her prayers.” On the social platform X, Bondi called the violence a “scourge on our society.”

The shooting took place a little after 2 p.m. Wednesday, on a quiet country road a couple of miles outside of an old mill town.

Officers were there to serve a warrant, the state police said. At the news conference with the governor, Paris said that they were following up on a “domestic-related” investigation that had begun the day before, though he gave few other details, including the identities of the officers who were killed or the departments they worked for.

Studies of police responses have found that domestic violence-related calls are among the most dangerous situations officers face. A federal report from 2017 found that “calls related to domestic disputes and domestic related incidents” were responsible for the highest number of officer fatalities of any category of police calls.

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