Ohio police officers opened fire on a couple who fled from police, hijacked a semi-truck, took the driver of the truck hostage, and led officers on a high speed chase.
The officer initially encountered the couple, a male and a female, via a traffic stop, ABC 7 noted. The stop ended abruptly when the couple sped off and then “pointed a gun at [the] pursuing officer.”
The couple fled to a truck stop, where they hijacked a semi-truck. The couple drove the vehicle through multiple counties, in an attempt to escape police, then finally came to a stop, which is when “a hostage situation ensued.”
FOX 8 reported that the semi-truck was near the Dayton International Airport when police deployment of spike strips brought it to a halt.
Negotiations for the release of the hostage began and continued for nearly four hours. Then a Special Response Team from the Ohio State Police approached to rescue the driver and came under fire. The troopers responded by returning fire.
Both members of the hostage-taking couple were shot, with the female dying soon after reaching the hospital and the male dying thereafter.
The semi-truck driver who had been held hostage “suffered only minor injuries.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com