A man opened fire on sheriff's deputies serving a warrant at a central Iowa apartment complex overnight, wounding two of them and setting off a gunbattle in which he, too, was wounded, authorities said Friday.
The shooting occurred at around 10:40 p.m. Thursday in Stuart, about 35 miles (57 kilometers) west of Des Moines.
Authorities on Friday identified the injured officers as Guthrie County Sheriff's Deputies Steven Henry and Jim Mink, and the suspect as 52-year-old Randall Comly.
Authorities investigate the scene after multiple law enforcement officers were shot Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019 in Stuart, Iowa. A man opened fire on sheriff's deputies serving a warrant at a central Iowa apartment complex overnight, wounding two of them and setting off a gunbattle in which he, too, was wounded, authorities said Friday. (Zach Boyden-HolmesThe Des Moines Register via AP)
The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said Comly began shooting at the deputies and a local police officer after they were let into the apartment. They returned fire, wounding Comly, who surrendered after a roughly 90-minute standoff.
Henry, a seven-year veteran of the department, and Mink, a five-year veteran, were both in good condition at a Des Moines hospital on Friday afternoon. Police said Comly remained at a Des Moines hospital in law enforcement custody with non-life-threatening injuries.
A Stuart police officer suffered a minor gunpowder burn in the shootout, officials said.
Some nearby apartment residents described the scene as chaotic. One of them, Natasha Peninger, told station KCCI that she and her children fled at an officer's urging.
"The cop banged on the door, and he said, 'You got to hurry up and go and head north,'" Peninger said. "I just grabbed my kids and left."
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.
At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.
In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.
FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
