Will the NRA tree ever die of being over watered?
4 officers fatally shot, 4 injured while serving warrant in Charlotte
Three members of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force were fatally shot during a standoff Monday while trying to serve a warrant in Charlotte. A Charlotte police officer died hours later from injuries he suffered during the incident. Four other law enforcement officers were wounded, and the person they were pursuing was killed.
The task force members were attempting to serve a warrant for possession of a firearm by a felon when they were met with gunfire at a Charlotte residence, police said.
The Marshals Service confirmed that one of the task force members who was killed was a deputy U.S. marshal. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) confirmed that the other two task force members were officers who worked in state prisons.
Another task force member and four Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers were also struck by gunfire, and one of the police officers was in critical condition, officials said Monday evening. Later that night, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced that Joshua Eyer, who had been an officer there for six years, had died. The others involved in the standoff were not identified.
President Biden expressed his sympathies in a statement Monday night, describing the officers who were killed as “heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice, rushing into harm’s way to protect us.” In the statement, he also called on Congress to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of guns, and pass universal background checks and a national red flag law.”
“We must do more to protect our law enforcement officers,” he said. “That means funding them — so they have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep us safe. And it means taking additional action to combat the scourge of gun violence.”
The NRA was silent.
Not even ‘thoughts and prayers’.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings described the incident as a “tragic day for the city of Charlotte and for the profession of law enforcement.”
“Today, we lost some heroes,” Jennings said during a news conference Monday evening.
About 1:30 p.m. Monday, members of the task force approached a Charlotte residence to serve the warrant, Jennings said. They were met with gunfire from the person they were trying to serve with the warrant. The task force members returned fire, and the person died in the front yard of the residence, Jennings said.
As the task force members approached that individual, they were met with more gunfire from inside the home, which led to a “long standoff” between law enforcement and the people inside the residence, Jennings said.
Police questioned two people who were inside the home as people of interest Monday. The investigation is ongoing.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday evening in a statement that the officers “put their lives on the line to apprehend some of our country’s most dangerous criminals,” adding that the Justice Department “is heartbroken by the deaths of three of our own law enforcement colleagues.”
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles (D) wrote on X that she was “deeply saddened” by the incident.
Composed of numerous member agencies, the Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force is headquartered in Charlotte. Since it started operations in 2018, the task force says, it has apprehended more than 8,900 fugitives.
Officials, who on Monday praised the officers for their bravery in serving the warrant, faced questions about the decision to attempt to execute it early in the afternoon, when schools were in session. Some schools in the area went into lockdown and residents in the area sheltered in place.
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“When you’re talking about a felon who has propensity to carry a firearm, there is no great time to do it,” Jennings said. “Whether it’s in the middle of the night or in the middle of the day.”
Jennings, who worked in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for more than 30 years, said he couldn’t recall another incident like Monday’s. The last time Charlotte police officers were killed by gunfire while on duty was in 2007, according to the police union’s records. Two officers were fatally shot after they responded to a domestic call, though their shootings were unrelated to the call, the Charlotte Observer reported.
One of the most recent U.S. Marshals deaths in the line of duty was in October 2021, when a deputy was killed in a vehicle accident.
“This is a good example of what we try to tell people every single day that when we put on this uniform,” Jennings said. “That we don’t have any guarantees that we’ll return home.”
Kelsey Ables contributed to this report.
Praveena Somasundaram is a reporter on The Washington Post's General Assignment desk. She started at The Post as an intern in 2022 and has previously reported at the Dallas Morning News and the Charlotte Observer.
