Associated Press
KNOXBORO, N.Y. — A 24-year-old sheriff’s deputy, whose wife is pregnant with their second child, was fatally shot during a gun battle at the end of a five-hour standoff at a house in central New York, authorities said Tuesday.
Deputy Kurt Wyman died after being rushed to a Utica hospital following the shootout around 2 a.m. Tuesday inside a garage in the rural hamlet of Knoxboro, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department told WKTV-TV and the Observer-Dispatch.
The suspect, Chris Patterson, 41, was shot several times by police and was in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, officials said.
Authorities said police responded to a report of a domestic dispute around 9 p.m. Monday at Patterson’s home in the farming community of about 2,000.
Patterson was armed with a long gun and had retreated to a garage when law enforcement officers arrived, authorities said.
Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. James McCarthy told the Utica newspaper that Wyman died from a single gunshot wound.
No other injuries were reported and details of the domestic dispute weren’t immediately available.
McCarthy said Wyman had been with the sheriff’s department for four years and had served with the Marines in the Middle East.
He said Wyman and his wife have one child together, and she went into labor with their second child after hearing the news of her husband’s shooting.
Authorities said more information on the shootout would be released at a news conference Tuesday morning.
Knoxboro is about 30 miles southeast of Syracuse.