A Massachusetts police officer died on Sunday after a man attacked him with a rock before stealing his gun and shooting him several times, said officials. Reports said that a woman was also killed in the shooting.
Weymouth police officer Michael Chesna was identified as the officer who was gunned down in the shooting before 8 a.m. local time, MassLive.com reported. The suspect was allegedly fleeing the scene of a car crash near South Shore Hospital.
Following the incident, Chesna, 42, was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Chesna, an Army veteran who had a wife and children, was later pronounced dead, the report said.
His death was announced by police at a press conference on Sunday afternoon.
Police sources told WCVB that the suspect, identified as Emmanuel Lopes, hit Chesna with a rock in the head before taking his gun and opening fire.
Officers ran after Lopes, and he fired several shots with Chesna’s gun, hitting a woman who was inside her house, killing her, according to the station’s report. NBC Boston also reported on the woman’s death. She was not identified in the reports, but the report described her as elderly.
Lopes is expected to be arraigned on two counts of murder, WCVB reported.
“I opened up the back door and instantly there was an officer there and then more came running out behind all those houses,” a witness told CBS Boston, adding that the shots took place at around 7:30 a.m. local time. “I did hear the cops telling him ‘put the gun down, put the gun down.’”
Another witness said that between 10 and 15 shots were fired in total, WCVB reported.
The Massachusetts State Police tweeted that troopers assets are assisting the investigation in Weymouth.
Weymouth, a city of about 55,000, is located in the Boston metropolitan area.
