San Antonio Police Chief William McManus provided an update during a press conference Friday on an officer-involved shooting that left two people dead after a shootout. Another passenger and the officer were wounded during the altercation.
According to McManus, an officer pulled a vehicle over during a traffic stop and had a "casual conversation" with the driver, when the driver all of sudden pulled out a gun and started to shoot at the officer.
"I’m not sure why but the driver pulled a gun and started firing at the officer. The office was hit in the hand and my understanding is once in the radio as well. He retreated backward, returning fire. Inside the vehicle, the passenger and the driver were both shot. They are both deceased and the third passenger was....shot in the upper torso."
The wounded passenger and the officer, who has been on the force for five years, have been transported to the hospital. Both of the killed individuals are male and "appear to be in their 20s, maybe mid-to-late 20s," according to McManus.
"I will also say that the officer is very, very lucky to be alive at that close range having been shot in the hand and not somewhere else more vital," he added.
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The shoot out during the traffic stop comes on the heels of the traffic stop that lead to the death of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where office Kim Potter used her handgun—thinking it was a taser—when Wright started to resist being arrested. In the aftermath of the shooting, riots broke out for multiple days.
During a press conference, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot said, "I don't believe that officers need to necessarily have weapons every time they're making a traffic stop."
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