KANSAS CITY, Kan. — An officer with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department died Tuesday after he was shot in his car as he approached people matching the description of suspects in an earlier shooting.
Capt. Robert Melton was brought to the University of Kansas Hospital just before 2:30 p.m., but resuscitation efforts did not work, trauma surgeon James Howard said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
“There’s a lot of pain and brokenness in our community and our nation right now, and we just want to ask everyone to be prayerful and thoughtful right now,” Mayor Mark Holland of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County said.
Melton had responded to a report of person being shot at by several people in a vehicle. When he and other officers arrived on the scene, the three or four occupants of the car jumped out and ran away, police said in a news release.
UPDATE: Kansas City, Kan. officer in shooting has been killed, suspect surrounded https://t.co/JtS3UUeWzC pic.twitter.com/ou4Bh6Jpbz
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 19, 2016
Kansas City, Kan., police officer shot; critically injured https://t.co/LXR4YdWKgm pic.twitter.com/RIt3R9sblv
— Bob Cronkleton (@cronkb) July 19, 2016
About a half-hour after the initial call, Melton saw people who matched the suspects’ descriptions about 20 blocks from the original scene and pulled up to them, police spokesman Tom Tomasic said. Before he could get out of his car, he was shot multiple times.
Melton’s car was in the middle of the street with “glass and blood all around it,” police spokesman Cameron Morgan said.
A second suspect was taken into custody later and police were looking for at least one more person.
Tuesday’s shooting was the second of a Kansas City, Kansas, police officer since early May, when a detective was shot and killed near Kansas Speedway.
Authorities said another news conference in the Melton shooting is planned for Wednesday morning.
