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A Sacramento police officer is dead after being shot while responding to a domestic disturbance call Wednesday, police said.
Officer Tara O’Sullivan, 26, was shot by a rifleman who blasted away at officers trying to rescue her, police said.
“This is not fair and it is not right,” said Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg.
Several officers were on a domestic disturbance call, helping a woman collect her belongings and leave a home in the north Sacramento neighborhood, when the officer was wounded, Sgt. Vance Chandler said.
She lay in the backyard of a home and officers couldn’t reach her because the gunman kept firing, Chandler said.
Photo credit: Sacramento Police Department
“Our officers maintained cover in safe positions until we were able to get an armored vehicle in the area,” he said.
It took more than 45 minutes to get her to UC Davis Medical Center, where O’Sullivan later died, he said.
“Officer Tara O’Sullivan was shot and killed,” Deputy Police Chief Dave Polletta said early Thursday morning. “She gave her young life while protecting our community.”
O’Sullivan had recently graduated from the police academy in December 2018.
“All I know right now that the officer is hurt bad, is at the hospital now and we’re praying for her recovery and for her to make it through,” City Councilman Allen Warren, who represents the area, told the Sacramento Bee.
The other woman wasn’t hurt.
Chandler didn’t immediately know the relationship between her and the gunman.
The rifleman kept shooting for at least two hours and as of late Wednesday night, Chandler said negotiators hadn’t been able to contact him.
Heavily-armored police from several agencies swarmed the residential neighborhood, where a couple dozen marked and unmarked police cars had gathered.
Police warned residents by loudspeaker to stay out of the area near the intersection of Redwood Avenue and Edgewater Road. Police were keeping media and onlookers out of sight of the scene