NORTH CODORUS, Pa. (AP) — Police returning to a home in the rolling farmland of southern Pennsylvania in search of a suspected stalker who may have been trespassing encountered a barrage of gunfire that left three of them dead and two more wounded.
All three slain officers and a fourth who remains hospitalized worked for the Northern York County Regional Police Department, which called Wednesday a “dark and heartbreaking day.”
Neighboring departments stepped in Thursday to help shoulder the workload as agency personnel grieved.
The violence erupted Wednesday afternoon as officers sought Matthew James Ruth in a domestic situation that began a day earlier. A law enforcement official who identified the 24-year-old as the shooting suspect spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. Ruth was killed by police at the scene.
Investigators twice visited Ruth's home in Hanover, about 10 miles from where the officers were killed, neighbor Rose Miller said. They first arrived at about noon, she said, and then again at about 5 p.m. They left around midnight with bags of potential evidence.
Miller didn’t know Ruth well, but remembered him working on Boy Scout fundraisers. No one answered the door at the home on Thursday.
“We need to do better as a society,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday evening. “We need to help the people who think that picking up a gun, picking up a weapon is the answer to resolving disputes.”
It was one of the state’s deadliest days for law enforcement this century, matching the toll from a day in 2009 when three officers were ambushed by a domestic violence suspect sporting a bulletproof vest.
As news of the tragedy spread, community members held American flags and saluted as police and emergency vehicles formed a procession to the coroner’s office. Police departments across the region mourned on social media, while people left flowers outside the slain officers' headquarters.
“We are devastated by the loss of three of our officers and continue to pray for the recovery of a fourth who remains hospitalized,” the department said Thursday.
Authorities have not identified the department affiliation of the second officer who was hospitalized, or named the officers who were killed.
The confrontation unfolded on a rural road in south-central Pennsylvania, not far from Maryland. Neighbor Dirk Anderson heard “quite a few” shots from his home across the street and wondered what was happening. Then he saw a helicopter and police arrive.
Some 30 police vehicles blocked off roads bordered by a barn, a goat farm and soybean and corn fields. The area, North Codorus, is about 46 miles (75 km) north of Baltimore.
“It’s strange walking down this road now and seeing all these cars and knowing what happened here,” said Bryan Rice, who lives nearby and regularly walks the road with his wife. He said he was still reeling Thursday from the news.
Another officer was killed in York County in February, when a man armed with a pistol and zip ties entered a hospital’s intensive care unit and took staff members hostage before a shootout that left both the man and an officer dead.
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Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C.
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Associated Press reporters Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island; and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed to this report.