The suspect who exchanged gunfire with a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, policeman Thursday on St. Paul Avenue had previously been in trouble.
He was accused of stealing vehicles and running from law enforcement, WISN reported Friday.
Officers responding to the scene learned 26-year-old Officer Herb Davis had been shot multiple times.
He was dispatched to the location to check on an individual slumped on the steering wheel of a truck.
“You go to a check on the welfare, and now you’re fighting for your life,” Milwaukee police Chief Jeffrey Norman commented.
Authorities said the man inside the vehicle shot Davis, but Davis returned fire and hit the man, whom officers explained then fled in the squad car.
The WISN report continued:
Surveillance video shows the stolen squad car speeding away from a couple of angles, heading east on St. Paul Avenue. Moments later, it crashed at 17th and Clybourn streets. Police arrested the suspect, 22-year-old Jetrin Rodthong. He was free on $3,300 bail in three open cases, charged with multiple felonies, including nearly running down a police officer in a stolen car.
In a social media post Thursday night, the Milwaukee Police Department said the suspect’s gun was located inside the officer’s car.
“No one else was injured by the gunfire,” the post read:
On Thursday, January 27, 2022, at approximately 6:27 p.m., a Milwaukee Police Department officer was dispatched to a…
Posted by Milwaukee Police Department on Thursday, January 27, 2022
Video footage showed a mugshot of Rodthong and officers at the scene of the incident:
The leader of the police union was told another officer was shot during a fundraiser for a detective who had also been shot a few weeks ago.
“You see everybody’s phone’s going off. The chief’s phone’s going off, and you realize and everybody’s looking at their phone, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, again, and so soon,” Milwaukee Police Association President Andrew Wagner stated.
The suspect in the detective’s shooting was also out on bail.
Rodthong has yet to be charged regarding the most recent incident but had three additional cases pending in Milwaukee County, according to CBS 58.
He also faces multiple counts of felony bail jumping, the outlet said, and detailed the problem of bail reform:
Relatives said he was currently hospitalized and in custody, and the WISN article reported Davis was released from the hospital Friday.
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