Updated at 5:30pm:
CMPD has identified the officer who was shot in the leg as Casey Shue. She's expected to recover. Shue was hired in 2014 and assigned to the North Tryon Division Crime Reduction Unit.
CMPD recognized her as "Officer of the Month" last August. She was among a group of officers who were standing outside headquarters Thursday night when 23-year-old Jonathan Bennett drove up to the building and opened fire.
CMPD says two CMPD officers and two probation officers returned fire. The two officers with CMPD have been identified as North Tryon Division officers Jeffrey Zeberbaum and Jared Decker. Both are on administrative leave, as is standard after officer-involved shootings. Zeberbaum joined CMPD in 2009 and Decker in 2014.
Original article, posted at 2:30am.
A murder suspect ambushed officers outside CMPD headquarters Thursday night by shooting at them. Officers returned fire and shot 23-year-old Jonathan Bennett. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
“He ambushed us, he shot at us,” CMPD Chief Kerr Putney said in a news conference at 12:30 a.m. outside police headquarters uptown.
A CMPD officer was shot in the leg and is being treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Bennett had been wanted since Thursday afternoon for the shooting death of 24-year-old Brittany White. Police say they had a child together. White was shot and pronounced dead at a residence in West Charlotte, the city’s first homicide in 2018.
At about 3:50 p.m., police said that Bennett was the only suspect and that detectives believe he took their 3-month-old baby. CMPD issued a press released that said Bennett was believed to be driving an older white Ford Expedition.
At 5:40, CMPD announced the baby had been located and was safe, but that Bennett was still on the run and should be considered armed and dangerous.
At 10:49 p.m., Putney said Bennett drove onto CMPD’s parking lot in the Ford Expedition. Six to eight officers were outside, some of which were parole and probations officers. Bennett got out and started shooting.
Putney said he doesn’t know the type of gun that Bennett used, nor the number of shots fired. It’s not clear how many times Bennett was shot.
“We are trying to see if we have footage on camera. We’re not having much luck at this point. As far as body cameras, I doubt when you’re being ambushed you think to turn on a camera.”
