In what may have been the deadliest day for law enforcement in the city’s history, three members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force were shot and killed this afternoon in east Charlotte. Another task force member and four Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers were injured, one critically.
“I’ve been with this department for 32 years, and I can’t remember an incident where three law enforcement officers were killed,” CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings told reporters during a news conference near the scene this afternoon. “To me, it’s the most tragic one I’ve ever been involved in.”
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department helicopter flies over uptown as developments continued in a deadly East Charlotte shootout on Monday.
At 1:30 p.m., members of the Charlotte-based, multi-agency task force attempted to serve a warrant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon to a home in the 5000 block of Galway Drive, off Shamrock Drive in the Shannon Park community. Someone in the home opened fire, which task force members returned. Then additional gunfire came from inside the home, Jennings said. The initial shooter, the subject of the warrant, was killed, and officers later found two additional people and a high-powered rifle inside.
.
Jennings said police believe two people inside the home shot at law enforcement; he did not name the suspects or the killed or wounded officers. The CMPD officers were not task force members but responded to a call for backup, he said. The three CMPD officers who weren’t critically injured were in stable condition and “expected to be OK,” he said.
The shooting was the worst incident for law enforcement in Charlotte since April 2007, when CMPD officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton were gunned down at an apartment complex off Milton Road, mere blocks from the scene Monday.