Officer killed during police persecution after the suspect attacks him intentionally: the police

A 26 -year -old Kansas police officer was killed when the police say that an intentionally suspect approached him while fleeing the authorities during a search.

Kansas City, Kansas, police officer Hunter Simoncic was deploying stopbad in response to persecution on early Tuesday when the suspicious led to him and hit him, then continued fleeing the area, police said.

Simoncic was transported to a hospital in the area, where he was declared dead, police said.

The suspect, Dennis Mitchell III, 31, of Kansas City, was arrested after colliding the vehicle and was arrested under suspicion of first degree murder, according to the Kansas Research Office.

“This was an intentional act, an intentional act, to evade custody hitting the officer,” said Kansas City Chief, Karl Oakman, during a press conference on Tuesday, qualifying the death of the “devastating” officer.

“It’s difficult. It makes no sense,” he said. “I have no words for that.”

The incident developed little around 12:30 am, when Kansas City officers, Kansas, Police Department were sent to a shots call, according to the KBI. The officers soon found Mitchell unconscious in the driver’s seat of a truck, said the KBI.

“When the officers approached the driver, he woke up and fled the scene,” said the KBI in a release.

Mitchell left the vehicle for another truck that was “hidden in the forest” and continued fleeing the officers, Oakman said.

During the persecution, Simoncic left his vehicle to stage the stopbad, in an attempt to drill and disinflar the tires in the vehicle that flees, the police said.

“The suspect continued through the stop sticks and diverted his vehicle directly to the Simoncic officer, hitting him on the scene,” Oakman said.

Shortly before 1 in the morning, Mitchell crashed the truck, Kbi said. He was arrested and treated in a hospital in the area before being admitted to Wyandotte County prison, according to the KBI.

He also faces charges of vehicular homicide, fleeing or trying to avoid a police officer, theft, criminal possession of a firearm and an aggravated breach, said the KBI. Formal charges are pending, police said. It is not clear if you have a lawyer right now.

Later, the police learned that both trucks driven by the suspect had been reported as stolen, according to the KBI.

Oakman said the suspect has several pending arrest orders, but did not go into details in the middle of the investigation, which is being carried out by the KBI.

Simoncic was following the protocol in the implementation of the stage sticks, said the police chief.

“This was a situation that we do in the subway thousands of times a year, displaying stopbad, and this individual felt the need to run to Hunter and kill him,” Oakman said. “That is not a vehicle accident. This was an intentional act of homicide on a police officer.”

Simoncic, who was from Walesburg, Kansas, graduated from the Police Academy of the Kansas City Police Department, Kansas, in 2023. His mother, his father and brother survive, Oakman said.

Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner condemned the “shameful acts of violence” in the community.

“I went to the hospital: what words do you tell a family, a brother, a mother and a father, afflicted, knowing that life has been turned off and did not have to be so?” Garner said during the press information session.

Simoncic volunteered to read and mentor of children in local schools, said the mayor, added: “That says a lot about the type of individual it was.”

“My heart hurts for this police department, for our boss, for his command staff, for all the men and women of Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, for all our public security professionals, for our community,” Garner said. “I simply do not have many words to say to comfort this community. And sometimes, saying: ‘thoughts and prayers’, it is simply not enough. It will simply take much more than that.”