A Syracuse cop and a sheriff’s deputy were shot and killed in an upstate New York community Sunday night in an exchange of gunfire in which the suspect was also killed, police said.
The deadly scene played out in front of a house in the Syracuse suburb of Salina before 9 p.m. as officers were investigating a suspicious car, law enforcement officials said.
An officer with the Syracuse Police Department and a deputy with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office were hit by gunfire, a Syracuse police spokesperson told The Post earlier Sunday night.
“We lost two heroes tonight,” said Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile during a news conference streamed by WYSR early Monday. “Two men who answered the call to duty to put on the badge to protect the community, protect and serve. We lost two of them tonight.”
The slain Syracuse cop and his partner initially made a traffic stop of a suspicious car in the city before it quickly fled, Cecile said.
But the officers were able to get the license plate number and tracked the car to a home in the community of Liverpool, which is in Salina.
Law enforcement from the city and Onondaga County arrived and saw what looked to be guns inside the car and heard noises that sounded like a person was “manipulating a firearm” inside the home, Cecile said.
“Moments later there was an exchange of gunfire between at least one suspect and the officers and the deputies,” he said.
The officer and deputy who were shot were rushed to the hospital, where they were both pronounced dead.
The suspect was also pronounced dead at the hospital.
There is no active threat to the community, officials said.
Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley said it was a “sad day for law enforcement” and Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh called it a “dark day for Syracuse” during the press briefing.
“This is our worst nightmare come true,” Walsh said. “And our thoughts right now are with the families of those two officers — those two heroes.”
The Syracuse police officer had about three years on the job and was “very active, very proactive,” Cecile said, while Shelley called the deputy a “seasoned” law enforcement officer who was “very well-liked in his community.”
“Just a great guy,” he added.
Hundreds of officers watched and saluted as the bodies of the slain officer and deputy were driven away from Upstate Medical University Hospital, according to footage posted on social media.
At an earlier press conference, Shelley said law enforcement officers were investigating a stolen car leading up to the shooting.
The Syracuse cops called in backup from the sheriff’s office after learning the driver of the vehicle might be armed.
Shelley said at the time it was unclear how many suspects were tied to the shooting.
Law enforcement flooded the area following the shooting, according to images from WHEC.
A neighbor, Brian Fagan, told Syracuse.com he heard a car zoom by as multiple deputy police cruisers chased after it. He then heard the cars come to a halt and multiple shots fired.
Mousa Alzokar, who lives across from the crime scene with his five children, told the outlet he also heard gunshots before two officers with long guns entered his house through the backdoor without knocking and went up to the second floor of his house to position themselves near a window.
Neither officer in his home fired a shot during the incident, Alzokar said.
At one point, he saw an officer carried into a sheriff’s vehicle that drove off.
The last Syracuse cop to die on the job was Willie Howard Jr. in 1990, and the last Onodaga sheriff’s deputy who was killed in the line of duty was Glenn Searles in 2003, when he was hit by a car, Syracuse.com reported.
