DENVER (AP) — Eight minutes after the call went out about a gunman opening fire outside a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, an officer called into his radio the words that no cop wants to hear: "I've been shot."
The gunbattle ultimately claimed the life of one officer and injured a total of five, the highest police casualty count in a single incident in the U.S. in two years and a reflection of the danger that mass shootings pose to police.
Police are wounded in about 25 percent of cases like the Nov. 27 Colorado Springs shooting, where officers arrive while the gunman is still firing, said Pete Blair, an associated professor of criminal justice at Texas State University.
Three more officers were shot and wounded inside the clinic about two hours later as SWAT teams tried to corner the suspect and rescue people from hiding places, the radio reports show.
The last time that many officers were hit by gunfire in a single incident was in October 2013, when police and a federal agent in Roseville, California, tried to arrest a wanted man, the FBI said.
Most police and sheriff's departments give individual officers the authority to decide whether to take on an active shooter immediately or wait for backup, said Sid Heal, a former Los Angeles County sheriff's commander and now a consultant with the Police Policy Studies Council.
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said the officers' willingness to immediately confront the shooter helped make possible the rescue of 24 people trapped inside the clinic, along with 300 others who took cover in nearby businesses.
