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By Heather Hollingsworth | Associated Press
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — A court employee and a police officer were fatally shot Thursday after the court process server tried to serve an eviction notice at a home in Missouri, authorities said.
A second officer was critically injured, but is expected to survive, police said.
Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman said Thursday afternoon at a news conference that two of his police officers were met with gunfire while coming to the aid of Drexel Mack, the man who had been trying to serve the eviction notice.
Mack had called 911 saying he had been shot, Dustman said. The officers responded at about 1:10 p.m. and approached Mack to help him when someone shot at them, he said.
“I’m very tragically sorry to report that we lost one of our own,” Dustman said, identifying the officer as Cody Allen.
The second officer, whose name wasn’t released, underwent surgery and is expected to recover, Dustman said.
Dustman called Allen a hero and described the police department as a “broken family,” over Allen’s death.
A male suspect was in custody and sustained minor injuries, Corporal Justin Ewing with Missouri State Highway Patrol said during an earlier news conference.
Independence Police Department spokesperson Officer Jack Taylor said no details were immediately available about what led to the shooting.
Mack had worked for Jackson County for over a decade, officials said.
“We are devastated that a court employee, who is a public servant, was shot by a member of the public while performing their job,” Presiding Judge Jalilah Otto said in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy and our thoughts are with our employee, our entire Court family, and the Independence Police Department.”
Helicopter video from KMBC-TV showed emergency vehicles converged around an isolated house in the middle of a field. The media was cordoned off in an area about 1 mile (1.61 kilometers) from the crime scene. The area was a mixture of woods and farmland with a smattering of houses on large, multi-acre lots. A church was mixed in among the houses.
Independence is a suburb of Kansas City, with about 122,000 residents.
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