HAMERSVILLE, Ohio (AP) - A man who fled from police died after an officer fired his gun at him and the man’s SUV crashed into a village administration building in southern Ohio, authorities said Wednesday.
Police said officers responded to a report of a suspicious person in the village of Hamersville on Tuesday evening.
Few details had been released by Wednesday morning, but investigators said that when officers arrived, the man jumped into a sport utility vehicle and drove off, dragging an officer. An officer fired and the vehicle slammed into the building.
The man, whose name was not released, died later at a hospital, authorities said. The officers were injured but were expected to be OK.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Brown County sheriff’s deputies and Hamersville police were investigating. Jill Del Greco, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said Wednesday she couldn’t comment because the investigation is ongoing.
A county prosecutor’s investigator, Buddy Coburn, said the village had ended a mayor’s court session shortly before the shooting.
“They had just gotten done with mayor’s court not very long before that,” Coburn said. “It really hits close to me because my wife’s the mayor’s court clerk.”
A resident said he heard the gunshots.
“I came up through here and next thing you know, I saw this van going through the building, then I saw the cop running,” Mark Liming told WCPO-TV of Cincinnati.
Hamersville has about 550 residents and is nearly 40 miles southeast of Cincinnati.
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