UPDATE:
SPD has also now identified the officer who was killed last night as Thomas LaValley, 29, who joined the force in 2011.
SPD HAS identified the suspect in last night’s killing of a Shreveport police officer as Grover Cannon. According to KTBS 3 he is also wanted on an additional attempted murder charge from earlier this summer.
Louisiana authorities and the United States Marshals Service launched a massive manhunt late Wednesday for a gunman who shot and killed a police officer responding to a domestic call, officials said.
The Shreveport police officer was responding to a report of a “suspicious person” in the suburb of Queensborough at about 9:15 p.m. local time Wednesday, authorities said. When the officer arrived and approached the suspect, he was shot.
The unidentified officer was taken to the hospital with critical injuries, but ultimately died, the Shreveport Times reported.
More than 70 police officials, helicopters and remote-controlled drones responded to the shooting and began a massive search for the gunman.
Police responded to the call expecting to find an armed man inside a Queensborough home threatening a family member, the Times report said. When the officers arrived at the home, they say the suspect opened fire and the officer was struck by multiple bullets.
Police locked down much of Queensborough hoping to prevent the killer’s escape, but the gunman remains at large.
The Louisiana State Police, the U.S. Marshals Service and authorities from nearby parishes are assisting in the manhunt.
After midnight, police had searched multiple homes in the area and rounded up bystanders in a supermarket parking lot, a news report said.
“May God bless the family of the SPD officer that lost his life tonight serving our city,” the Caddo Parish Constable’s Office said via Twitter late Wednesday. “Please keep this officer’s family in your prayers tonight as well as our local law enforcement. He died protecting us.”
Neither the gunman’s identity nor his description have yet been reported.
Copyright 2015 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.
