An Ohio police officer and a suspect are dead after an hourslong armed standoff ended in gunfire.
Authorities say 24-year-old Toledo Police officer Brandon Stalker was shot and killed Monday when 27-year-old Christopher Harris emerged from a home with “a firearm in both hands and fired shots in multiple directions.” Police say multiple officers returned fire and shot Harris. Both men were pronounced dead at a hospital.
Toledo Police Chief George Kral says the standoff started about 4 p.m., when officers noticed a man with warrants out for his arrest in connection to cathedral vandalism smoking outside a home in a residential neighborhood.
Officers approached the man, who fled brandishing a firearm and entered a nearby home.
Gov. Mike DeWine has ordered that all U.S. and Ohio flags be flown at half-staff at Lucas County public buildings and grounds, and at the Ohio Statehouse and state office bildings in Columbus, until sunset on the day of Stalker's funeral.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost issued a statement Tuesday calling Stalker a "man of valor and honor."
"Most of us live in peace and safety because people like Officer Stalker spend their working day at risk of violence," Yost wrote. "My heart breaks for the family he left behind, and for his brother and sister officers."
