By Rachel Southmayd and Jonathan McFadden
The Herald
FORT MILL, S.C. — A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officer was shot Tuesday morning at a home in Fort Mill while trying to serve a warrant on a robbery suspect, authorities said.
The officer’s name is Shane Page. He has been with the CMPD since September 27, 2000.
Between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., members of CMPD’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Team prepared to serve a warrant on James William Lewis at 314 Brookside Drive in the Foxwood Subdivision in Fort Mill. Deputies with the York County Sheriff’s Office and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Safe Street Task Force were on scene assisting. Lewis was wanted for robbery with a dangerous weapon, according to a CMPD news release.
While officers were inside the house searching for Lewis, there was an exchange of gunfire between the suspects and officers, police say. Both Page and Lewis were shot.
The suspect suffered non-life threatening injuries, but the officer suffered serious injuries, the release states.
Around 11 a.m. CMPD Chief Rodney Monroe said Page was out of surgery and doing well.
Lewis’s injuries were “non-life threatening.”
Both Lewis and Page were taken to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
No York County deputies fired any shots or sustained any injuries, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Trent Faris.
An older couple lives in the house on Brookside, said neighbor Stephanie Renner.
Renner said she did not hear any gunshots this morning, but when her children left their home to walk to the end of the street to wait for the bus, they came back after seeing the police tape.
An officer informed her of the shooting, she said.
The man and woman were “nice people,” Renner said, but had fallen on hard times in the past. She didn’t believe that Lewis lived at the home, and said that “lot of different characters” were often seen coming in and out of the house.
The shooting happened 1.5 miles away from Fort Mill Middle School and Fort Mill Elementary School and about 2 miles away from the Anne Springs Close Greenway. Fort Mill School District spokesperson Kelly McKinney said a middle school bus that normally picks students up in Foxwood was unable to do so because police weren’t allowing traffic in the neighborhood.
Most elementary students in the immediate area were picked up by their usual buses.
The schools did not go into lockdown because the middle school’s school resource officer was advised that the situation was contained and safe by the time students arrived, McKinney said.
Both the FBI and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division were at the site of the incident late Tuesday morning investigating.
Page was given a Medal of Valor by the CMPD in 2006 when he assisted a fellow officer who was also shot by a suspect while serving a warrant.
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