A veteran San Diego police officer was fatally shot and two other people were killed in a brief but furious gun battle that began with authorities trying to arrest a suspect in an assault case, officials said Thursday.
Officer Christopher Wilson, 50, a 17-year veteran of the Police Department and a Navy veteran who was divorced with two teenage children, was killed late Wednesday when gunfire broke out after people barricaded themselves in a bedroom in an apartment in the Skyline neighborhood of southeast San Diego. Wilson was shot in the head.
Eight hours later, a police SWAT team stormed the second-floor apartment after firing flash-bang grenades and up to 20 tear-gas canisters. Once inside, they found a man and a woman dead, firearms near their bodies.
In all, three people were arrested - one man before Wilson was shot and another man and a woman before the SWAT team entered the apartment and found the bodies.
Residents of other apartments were evacuated and spent the night standing outside stores in a nearby strip mall. The Red Cross brought blankets, but some residents begged police to be allowed back into their homes.
In the daylight, as police investigators entered the apartment to gather evidence, pools of blood could be seen outside the front door. Residents who had been evacuated from their homes recalled hearing a dozen or more shots.
Wilson was the first San Diego officer fatally shot in the line of duty since the 1991 killing of Officer Ronald Davis, who had responded to a domestic violence call. In 2003, Officer Terry Bennett was struck and killed in a case of vehicular homicide.
At an emotional news conference Thursday, Wilson was praised as a top-notch officer who spent his entire career in the city's Southeastern division, the most racially diverse section of the city.
"Every mayor and police chief dreads a day like today," said Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, his voice breaking.
Wilson routinely was given the highest compliments by fellow officers, who called him "good cover" when they needed help, Sanders said.
"He was popular, funny, extremely bright - a consummate professional," Sanders said, occasionally stopping to regain his composure.
Police Chief William Lansdowne praised the doctors at Scripps Mercy Hospital, who, while knowing that Wilson could not survive, kept him alive long enough so that his family and other officers could rush to the hospital to be with him. Dozens of officers also visited the hospital.
Lansdowne also praised Wilson: "He's the type of person you want in your city, you want as your neighbor."
Councilman Tony Young said: "The city has lost a dedicated protector." He added that Wilson had served his community with "dignity and respect." Wilson had served on the SWAT team and as a training officer.
Wilson and other officers had gone to the apartment to assist probation officers and U.S. marshals in finding a probationer considered to be harboring a suspect in a case involving an assault with a deadly weapon.
After the probationer was arrested, four other people barricaded themselves in a back bedroom and opened fire, striking Wilson. Police returned fire.
One of the people in the bedroom was the person wanted in the assault case, police said.
At the time the shots were fired, authorities said there were six San Diego officers inside the apartment. They declined to say how many shots were fired or how the two people in the bedroom were killed.
Acting Asst. Chief Jim Collins said a determination of how the two died probably will not be made until autopsies are performed.
After Wilson was shot and police returned fire, police left the apartment and the SWAT team was assembled.
Before the SWAT assault about 6:45 a.m., a man and a woman surrendered by calling 911, Collins said. They were arrested but later released, police said.
Once police entered the back bedroom, they found the dead man and woman.
In the gun battle, a San Diego police dog, a Belgian Malinois named Monty, was wounded but survived and is expected to return to duty, officials said.
