By David Schwartz
PHOENIX -A man fatally shot a woman inside a Phoenix home on Friday, then opened fire on police who were called to the scene, wounding nine officers in a gunfight that ended with the suspect shot dead, city police said.
Another man who carried an infant girl out of the dwelling unharmed was taken into custody during the incident, which apparently stemmed from a domestic dispute before escalating into bloodshed and a standoff with a police, authorities said.
A Phoenix police department spokesperson, Sergeant Andy Williams, said the suspect, identified as Morris Jones, 36, was found dead inside the home from an apparent gunshot wound. But it was not immediately clear whether he took his own life or was killed in the shootout with police.
Authorities did not publicly identify any of the others involved in the shooting and offered no possible motive for the violence.
The slain woman and the suspect were believed to have been the child’s biological parents from a past relationship, while the second man was apparently related to both the gunman and his victim.
“This is senseless, it doesn’t need to happen, and it continues to happen over and over again,” Police Chief Jeri Williams said at a separate briefing outside a Phoenix hospital where five police officers struck by gunfire were admitted.
Four of those officers were recovering and one was “on the road to recovery,” the chief said. Police said four other officers suffered less serious shrapnel wounds during the gunfight.
Police first arrived at the scene in mid-afternoon after an emergency call about a woman being shot. The suspect invited police inside the residence, but one officer was gunned down as he approached, Sergeant Williams said.
The man who later emerged from the house with the baby girl placed the child on the ground before surrendering to officers. He was later ruled out as a suspect, police said.
Four more officers were shot and wounded while trying to move the baby out of the line of fire from the gunman, who by then had barricaded himself inside the property, police said. The child was ultimately rescued unharmed, according to police.
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford and David Schwartz; Editing by Andrea Ricci, David Gregorio and Lincoln Feast.)