Statesville, NC – An unidentified gunman ambushed two Statesville police officers on Friday night, hitting one of the officers in the back.
Statesville Police Officer Tyler Horn and an unnamed second officer were on foot patrol in the area of 5th Street and West Raleigh Avenue at approximately 11 p.m., when a suspect stepped out of the shadows behind them and opened fire, Police Chief Joe Barone told the Statesville Record & Landmark.
The gunman then fled the area, and has not yet been identified.
Officer Horn was rushed to Iredell Memorial Hospital in a patrol vehicle following the attack, WJZY reported.
His ballistic vest took the brunt of the bullet’s impact and Officer Horn was treated and released from the hospital on Saturday morning.
"We heard three large booms and then I saw snipers and a sea of PD," resident Bridgett Nesbit told WJZY.
Investigators later told her that the officers were ambushed either in her yard, or nearby, she said.
Nesbit posted a brief video of the scene to her Facebook account.
In the comment threat below the video, she noted that officers yelled commands to several individuals near her porch at one point during the night, but ultimately determined that they were not involved in the attack.
A heavy police presence remained in the neighborhood on Saturday, as local, state, and federal investigators worked to identify and locate the gunman, the Statesville Record & Landmark reported.
It was unclear whether the officers returned fire, or how many times they were shot at by the assailant.
Officer Horn has been with the department for over four years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
You can watch Nesbit’s cell phone footage of the scene in the video below:
