San Diego Police Officers Shot Overnight – One Officer Dead, Another Wounded

According to the San Diego Police Department Twitter account, two officers were shot last night. One of the San Diego officers has been pronounced dead, and the other underwent surgery for multiple gunshot wounds.

The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Thursday evening, and according to the police, San Diego officers had one shooting suspect in custody at 12:30 a.m. this morning and proceeded to search for additional suspects.

The shooting occurred in the 3800 block of Boston Avenue in San Diego. A manhunt for additional shooters centered around San Diego’s Southcrest neighborhood. The police department warned citizens in the area to remain indoors. However, after San Diego police searched the area with squad cars, helicopters, and on foot, the search was finally called off.

The facts surrounding the shooting of the two officers are still murky, but it appears a traffic stop was made, and the shooting in San Diego erupted out of that. The as yet unnamed officers each suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

It is with a very sad heart that we announce the death of one of our Officers tonight. Pray for his family pic.twitter.com/3l9PXa1vuW

— San Diego Police (@SanDiegoPD) July 29, 2016

As of 3:00 a.m. this morning (local time), the San Diego Twitter account announced that the second officer was still in surgery and asked that the country pray for him and his family. As of 4:00 a.m., the San Diego Police Department announced that the second officer was out of surgery and that he would survive.

.@ChiefZimmerman just left the hospital where our second Officer has just come out of surgery. He is expected to survive!!

— San Diego Police (@SanDiegoPD) July 29, 2016

Officers in San Diego, and across the country, have been on high alert after the murder of officers earlier in July in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas.

A recent report indicated that the shooting of law enforcement officers has skyrocketed by 78 percent in the first six months of 2016 compared to last year. It is unknown at present if the shootings last night in San Diego were pre-meditated like the assaults that killed the officers in the Baton Rouge and Dallas shootings.

So far this year, 14 officers have been killed in what police have termed as “ambush-style attacks.” As tragic as the numbers are, and as much attention as the deaths of both officers and those at the hands of officers have been given in recent months, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund data indicates that the deaths of officers from firearms are still lower in recent years than they were at the end of the 20th Century.

The death last night of the officer in San Diego makes that officer the 34th police officer to be slain in the line of duty in a firearm-related death so far this year.

Craig W. Floyd, the head of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, commented on the increase in deaths of police officers across the country.

“That’s a very alarming, shocking increase in the number of officers who are being literally assassinated because of the uniform they wear and the job that they do.”

The San Diego shootings last night come hot on the heels of both the Baton Rouge, Louisiana shooting on July 17th, when a black gunman ambushed and killed two police officers and one sheriff’s deputy, and the July 7th assassination by a black gunman of five officers during a peaceful protest of recent police shootings of black suspects. Both suspects in those incidents were killed by officers.

Those two incidents have helped both Texas and Louisiana lead the nation in officers who have died in the line of duty. Texas leads the country with 14 deaths in 2016, and Louisiana comes in second with seven.

More details about last nights shootings are expected throughout the day from the police department in San Diego.

[Feature Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images]