By Chris Ehrmann The Saginaw News
PORT HURON, Mich. – Police in St. Clair County are grieving the loss of a fellow officer after he was fatally shot and two others injured early Friday. A suspect is in custody.
“This is a tragic loss for the Port Huron Police Department, Lt. (Joel) Wood was a great officer. He spent 23 years with our department in a capacity, starting his career as a police cadet,” Port Huron Police Chief Joseph Platzer said.
The St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office and the Port Huron Police Department said at a news conference Friday, Aug. 24, in Port Huron that they have the suspect in custody in connection with the death of the 45-year-old Wood, a resident of Greenwood Township who was off duty at the time.
“We are confident that the suspect in custody is responsible for the attack on the victims,” St. Clair County Undersheriff Thomas Buckley said.
Buckley added that the suspect is a 36-year-old man from Mt. Morris and was arrested in Southfield around 4:53 a.m. on Friday, roughly four hours after the shooting occurred in Clyde Township.
“At approximately 12:52 a.m. this morning, St Clair County Central Dispatch received a call of an incident of shots fired with injured persons in the 4700 block of Atkins Road,” Buckley said.
He said when officers arrived on the scene they found a 57-year-old male from Clyde Township with a single non-life threatening gunshot wound and a 29-year-old woman, who worked as an administrative assistant for the police department, with multiple serious gunshot wounds.
Platzer said Wood and the administrative assistant were colleagues.
Buckley said the two were transported immediately to the McLaren Port Huron hospital as police searched the area for the suspect, set up a perimeter and deployed a K9 unit to find him.
“The Port Huron Police Department and the city of Port Huron is grieving today,” Platzer said.
Platzer and other are asking for privacy of the family of Wood and of the other victims while police continue their investigation.
Buckley thanked all the officers involved with the investigation, as well as the Michigan State Police and the Southfield Police Department for assisting in the arrest of the suspect.
Police are not releasing the name of the suspect until his arraignment on Sunday.
Ā©2018 The Saginaw News, Mich.
