UPDATE: Police say they have captured the man suspected in the ambush killings of 2 Des Moines area officers.
Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek says Scott Michael Greene was taken into custody without incident Wednesday morning.
---------
Two police officers were shot and killed in an apparent ambush attack early this morning near Des Moines, Iowa.
State officials have launched a manhunt for the suspect or suspects, although police right now say they are working with very few details other than a vehicle description, according to Sgt. Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department.
“In all appearances it looks just like that, the officers were ambushed,” Parizek said at a press conference this morning. “On the surface right now, like I said, we are just a few hours into this. It doesn’t look like there was any interaction between these officers and whoever the coward is who shot that while they sat in their cars.”
The first officer responded to a report of shots fired shortly after 1 a.m. local time in the suburb of Urbandale, a few miles from Des Moines. He was fatally shot while sitting alone in his patrol vehicle, police said.
The second officer, who came in to assist in the initial incident, was shot minutes later in his patrol car in the middle of an intersection. The wounded officer was transported to a local hospital where he died, police said.
Parizek expressed grave concern for the safety of police officers in the area.
“There is clearly danger if you are a police officer. These guys were gunned down, sitting in their car, doing nothing wrong,” he said. “So there is definitely some danger out there, there is someone out there shooting police officers. We hope we find him before anyone else gets hurt. We definitely don’t want anyone in the public or in the community to get hurt, but there is a clear and present danger to police officers right now."
TRENDING STORIES:
Parizek said the law enforcement agency has doubled up its officers on patrol in the meantime.
“We are very well aware that the society that we are living in right now and the time, there are some not so positive views of law enforcement that a certain segment of our population holds. So we are as vigilant as we can be and still provide the service we need to provide,” Parizek told reporters.
There was no radio traffic between the fallen officers and dispatch during the shootings, police said. It is unclear if the officers were equipped with dashboard or body cameras at the time they were shot.
Information from the ABC News was used in this report
