Four law enforcement officers were killed, and four others were injured Monday when gunfire rang out at a house in Charlotte, North Carolina, where officers were attempting to serve a warrant. The suspect who fired at officers was fatally shot on the lawn of the house, while two other people inside the home were later taken in for questioning. Officials have said there may have been more than one shooter. This is one of the deadliest attacks on police that the nation has seen in a long time. The shooter has been identified as 39-year-old Terry Clark Hughes Jr., who had several active warrants for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and two counts of fleeing to elude.
Around 1:30 p.m. on Monday, officers with the U.S. Marshals Task Force arrived at the home located in a suburb of Charlotte. Armed with a “high-powered rifle,” Hughes fired upon the approaching task force officers, striking several of them, police said. Officers fatally shot the man, who was pronounced dead on the front lawn. From inside the house, another shooter began firing.
After an hours-long standoff, authorities sieged the home with armored vehicles and located at least one assault rifle. Two women were brought in for questioning after they left the house, the police department said in a statement. Johnny Jennings, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, had earlier said a 17-year-old and a woman were being questioned.
Eight officers – four from the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and four from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department – were shot in the incident. Of the officers who were killed, three were from the task force and the other was from the police department.
Two of the slain task force members, Sam Poloche and Alden Elliott, were employed by the state’s Department of Adult Correction for 14 years, a statement from the department said. Poloche is survived by his wife and two children, and Elliot was married and had one child. Both were pronounced dead at a hospital.
U.S. Marshals Deputy Thomas M. Weeks Jr., 48, of Mooresville, North Carolina, was killed in the shooting on Monday, the agency said in a statement. Weeks, a husband and the father of four children, was a 13-year veteran of the Marshals Service.
After hours in the hospital, Joshua Eyer, a six-year veteran of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, died from his injuries. Eyer was married and has a 3-year-old son.
“He fought for several hours and passed away from his injuries with his wife and family by his side tonight,” Jennings wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, “I am truly grateful for his bravery, service, and ultimate sacrifice. He will never be forgotten, and we are forever indebted.”
