(USNewsMag.com) – On April 14th, two police officers were killed near Syracuse, New York, after an exchange of gunfire that started with an attempted traffic stop.
The two officers killed have been identified as Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen, 29, and Onondaga Sheriff’s Deputy Lt. Michael Hoosock, 37. The suspect, identified as Christopher R. Murphy, 33, was also killed in the incident.
Jensen, a former resident of Rome who graduated from Rome Free Academy in 2013, attended Le Moyne College, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA. He graduated in August 2022 from the Syracuse Regional Police Academy and, in February 2022, officially joined the Syracuse Police Department.
A member of the Onondaga Sheriff’s Office since 2007, Hoosock is survived by his wife and three children, ages 3, 5, and 7. Hoosock, who had experience as an EMT, was the Sheriff’s Office bomb squad commander.
According to Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile, the incident began when two Syracuse Police Department officers attempted to pull over a vehicle that did not stop. When the officers lost sight of the vehicle, they used the license plate to track the car to a nearby home in Liverpool. After the two officers learned the person driving the vehicle could be armed, they requested the assistance of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, who arrived at the home around the same time as the two Syracuse officers.
As officers were looking in the vehicle, someone inside the home appeared to be “manipulating a firearm,” and gunfire was exchanged between the police and “at least one suspect.”
District Attorney William Fitzpatrick stated that before police arrived at the home, Murphy had been with a friend “doing lines of cocaine.” According to the friend, Murphy had been “acting erratically” and “told the friend to leave,” which he did before the incident occurred.
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said, “This is our worst nightmare come true.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote on social media that she was “horrified by the senseless” killings.
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