Updated Wednesday, Nov. 2, 11 a.m. EDT: Police have a suspect in custody after two police officers in Iowa were shot and killed in "ambush-style attacks," NPR reports.
Police announced earlier Wednesday that they were searching for 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene, who was considered armed and dangerous.
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 2, 9:30 a.m. EDT: Police have identified Scott Michael Greene, a 46-year-old resident of Urbandale, Iowa, as the suspect behind the shootings that left two Iowa police officers dead in what authorities are calling "ambush-style attacks" at separate locations early Wednesday morning, BuzzFeed reports.
Police are still looking for Greene, who is considered armed and dangerous. He was last known to be driving a blue Ford F-150 with an Iowa license plate.
Greene has had run-ins with officers before, according to the report. BuzzFeed reports that a video uploaded to YouTube from an account that appears to belong to Greene showed him arguing with police officers after he claimed that he was assaulted at an event Oct. 14 at Urbandale High School.
The video, titled “Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School,” shows Greene apparently recording after two officers ask him to leave school property.
“Have I committed a crime?” Greene is heard asking the officers.
One officer responds, “You’re on private property, you’re on school property, we’re asking you to leave.”
Officers can also be heard telling Greene that he is “causing disturbance in the stands” and could be arrested for trespassing.
“I think I’ve been assaulted by you,” Greene can be heard telling officers. “You grabbed me and shoved me around.” He can later be heard telling another officer that he wants to report the theft of his flag that another officer had taken from him.
As BuzzFeed reports, in a separate video, Greene can be seen holding what seems to be an American flag and a Confederate battle flag in the stands of the bleachers.
Earlier:
Two police officers in Iowa were shot and killed early Wednesday morning in what local police are calling "ambush-style attacks," the New York Times reports.
One of the shootings occurred in Des Moines proper, while the other occurred in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale.
According to the report, just after 1 a.m. Wednesday, police in Urbandale responded to reports of gunfire near the intersection of 70th Street and Aurora Avenue. When they arrived on the scene, they found a colleague who had been shot. Officers from Des Moines and other agencies were called in for help.
About half an hour later, around 1:30 a.m., a Des Moines officer was found shot, just about a five-minute drive from where the first officer was found.
“The shootings appear to have been ambush-style attacks,” the Urbandale police said in a statement.
Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesman for the Des Moines Police Department, said it did not look as if the officers had had any interaction with the shooter.
“It doesn’t look like there was any interaction between these officers and whoever the coward is who shot them while they sat in their cars," he said. “We’re developing some suspect information right now. … There’s nothing that we can share. As soon as we’ve got something that we can put out, it’s coming out.”
Parizek said at the news conference that there is a "clear and present danger to police officers right now," citing, again, that the officers "were gunned down, sitting in their car doing nothing wrong."
“We’re very well aware of the society that we’re living in right now and the time,” he said. “And that there are some not-so-positive views of law enforcement that a segment of our population holds," the officer added.
“If we don’t provide the service in the area that we do, with the personal-type service that we do, we’re nothing more than an occupying army. We’re going to do what we can to keep ourselves safe,” Parizek continued, according to the Times, adding that officers would continue to "answer the call" as expected.
Read more at the New York Times and BuzzFeed.