A shooting in a suburb of Flint left a gunman dead and two officers critically injured but expected to recover in a "violent confrontation" after a chase on foot, authorities said.
Burton Police Department patrolman Dalton Christy and Genesee County Sheriff's Office deputy Brandon Fachting responded to a 1:56 p.m. 911 call about a person with a gun, said Sheriff Christopher Swanson in a Tuesday press conference.
Officers identified a suspect, a male Burton resident in his 20s, near the intersection of Columbine and Bristol, Swanson said.
"A foot chase ensued. There was a point where there was a violent confrontation," the sheriff said. "The deputy was shot. The Burton officer was shot. ... The suspect is dead on scene."
The shooting took place a short distance from where the officers first encountered the suspect, and the incident was over in under 10 minutes, Swanson said at a second Tuesday night press conference.
Both officers had less than two years' experience on the job, the sheriff added.
The man tried to scale a fence that then collapsed on him, said Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton.
When the two officers tried pulling the fence off the suspect to apprehend him, he opened fire and the officers shot back, Leyton said.
Two sheriff's deputies decided to take the wounded officers to Hurley Medical Center in Flint in the back of a patrol car, Swanson said, with help from officers in the area who closed off blocks and cleared the route for them to arrive quickly.
"...Such a great (trauma) team came together to fight for the lives of these officers," the sheriff said, adding that after three hours in surgery, Fachting was transferred to the intensive care unit and "is going to survive."
Christie's condition was upgraded to "fair" Tuesday, and he is also expected to recover. When Burton Mayor Duane Haskins visited him in the hospital after the incident, he said Christie "still had a smile on his face, and looked at everybody and said 'it'll be OK.'"
The last time an officer was shot in the line of duty in Burton was in 1983, Haskins said. The officer was Terry Lee Thompson, 32, who was shot and killed while responding to a burglary alarm at a local store, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
"The outpouring has been tremendous, nationwide," Haskins said. "...Just keep the families in your thoughts and prayers."
Burton police Lt. Kevin Kissel, who responded to the scene of the shooting, said the incident was chaotic but thanked the numerous Burton residents who had reached out since to help with the investigation and offer support to the injured officers.
More details were not available, Swanson said, citing the ongoing investigation. Leyton's office was helping the department with search warrants to gather more evidence, including from the suspect's car and home, he added, and detectives had been sent from Oakland and Shiawassee counties to help.
