By Alexis Bechman
The Arizona Daily Star
TUCSON, Ariz. — One police officer was shot and another stabbed after responding to a domestic-violence call Sunday afternoon on the North Side.
One officer was stabbed in the right armpit, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman. The other officer, on the job for 10 months, was shot in the leg.
Both officers were in University Medical Center with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, Pacheco said.
The incident started around 3 p.m. in the 1500 block of East Prince Road, near North Cherry Avenue, he said.
Pacheco gave the following account of the incident, which was the department’s first shooting of an officer this year:
Officer Edward Boyen, 34, and a female officer went to an apartment on the domestic-violence call.
When the officers arrived, they found Travis O’Neal Hylton, 17, barricaded in a bedroom with his 4-month-old baby.
Boyen forced entry into the room, and Hylton stabbed Boyen in the right armpit and then took Boyen’s gun.
The female officer seized the infant and shot Hylton in the left shoulder.
Pacheco would not say how many times she fired at Hylton.
Hylton fled the apartment and began shooting at responding officers in the complex’s parking lot. Officer David Friedman, 23, was shot in the upper leg.
Hylton ran from the parking lot, and police began a search. They found Hylton hiding near the apartment complex, behind a wall.
Pacheco could not say how many times Hylton, who also was hospitalized at UMC, fired at officers, but “it was a lot.”
One man who lives in the area was outside when he saw officers arriving at the scene.
“When I saw the cop cars, I figured something was going down,” Rob Carlisle said. “The scene reminded me of when Officer Hardesty was killed a few years ago near here. The officers did a really good job of securing the area and quickly blocking access.”
Officer Patrick Kent Hardesty was shot to death in June 2003 while he was investigating a car wreck near East Fort Lowell Road and North First Avenue.
Pacheco would not say who made the domestic-violence call Sunday.
Friedman has been with the Police Department since last July, while Boyen was hired in February 2000.
Copyright 2008 The Arizona Daily Star