Bluffs police investigating officer-involved shooting that left man in critical condition

Bluffs police investigating officer-involved shooting that left man in critical condition
A driver who was shot by Council Bluffs police flipped his car early Thursday when he was trying to flee after he was shot. The man got out of the car and ran, but was arrested after a short foot chase. (World-Herald News Service)
Council Bluffs police were investigating an officer-involved shooting early Thursday that left a man in critical condition.
The mayhem began around 3:10 a.m. at a Phillips 66 convenience store at 611 E. Broadway near Frank Street.
Bluffs police said an officer responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle in a business lot fired his service weapon while attempting to arrest the driver of the car. After suffering a gunshot wound, officials said, the motorist raced away from the lot. He lost control and flipped his car onto its roof. The man was arrested after a short foot chase, police said.
The injured man was taken in critical condition to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, according to rescue squad personnel.
The names of the officers involved in the matter and of the man who was shot have not yet been released.
At one point, Pottawattamie County 911 dispatchers issued a help-an-officer call. Later, they said an officer had not been injured.
At another point, dispatchers said a pedestrian may have been struck by a vehicle.
Bluffs police are being assisted in their probe of the case by the Iowa Division of Criminal investigation.
About 7 a.m., investigators had the convenience store and its parking lot taped off. Several evidence markers had been placed just west of the lot where the wounded motorist flipped his car. About two blocks west, police blocked off Pierce Street between Union Street and Lincoln Avenue, where the man may have been captured after fleeing from the overturned car.
Police also blocked off Frank Street, which borders the convenience store on the west, between East Broadway and Pierce.
Melissa Morpimer, 24, a clerk at the Walgreens just west of the convenience store, said she was working Thursday morning when she heard a "loud bang."
She said she stepped outside and spotted the overturned car. No one was in the car.
Morpimer said she had not heard any gunfire.
Share: