LORAIN, Ohio (AP) — The man who shot and wounded three Ohio police officers in an ambush attack was identified Thursday by the Lorain County Coroner’s Office as 28-year-old Michael Joseph Parker.
The coroner’s office said an autopsy was planned for Parker, who died as a result of the Wednesday afternoon shooting in Lorain, a city west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.
“Officers returned fire during the exchange, which ultimately resulted in Parker sustaining a fatal injury,” according to statement shared online Thursday by police in nearby Elyria, who are handling the investigation.
Authorities say they believe Parker acted alone when he used a high-powered rifle to shoot at the three city officers: Phillip Wagner, 35; Peter Gale, 51; and Brent Payne, 47.
Parker’s home was searched for more than five hours Wednesday night. A neighbor said officers broke an upstairs window and flew in a drone during the search.
Just before the ambush, Wagner and Gale had parked to eat pizza on a dead-end street in a remote, undeveloped area overlooking a river and a steel mill in Lorain. Payne was shot after responding to their call for help, acting Police Chief Michael Failing said.
Two of the officers suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were in critical condition after being flown to a trauma center, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police. The other officer was shot in the hand, Failing said.
Investigators found multiple rifles, handguns and loaded magazines in and around Parker’s vehicle, along with “a significant quantity of improvised explosive materials” that they removed and safely detonated, the Elyria police statement said.
Parker lived with his parents in a tidy, two-story brick home along the lake. Neighbors said Thursday they often saw him walking the family dog to the nearby beach, but he rarely engaged in conversation, and never saw him with friends.
“He was just an odd character,” said Jody Burnsworth, who has lived next door to the family since 2012. “He wasn’t rude. He was just always quiet. When he walked he looked like he was always ultra-focused on something.”
She said she always had an uneasy feeling about him, never opening her bedroom drapes on the side of the house that faced his home.
“I hate that I thought that,” she said. “He kind of gave me the creeps. Sometimes he would just look at you in an odd way.”
Burnsworth said that during the past year he was hired at the post office but soon quit because the work was too difficult.
During the search, a tactical vehicle pulled up outside the house and officers broke out an upstairs window before flying a drone inside, Burnsworth said.
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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
