Jan. 26, 2004 – A Bureau of Corrections supervisor and another individual were wounded in an exchange of gunfire Sunday night in Estate Work and Rest. According to Attorney General Iver Stridiron, the officer, who was in a Corrections vehicle, appeared to have been caught in a gunfight that was under way.
Sgt. Thomas Hannah, Police spokesman, declined to identity the Corrections officer on Monday "because the investigation is ongoing and certain things occurred in this incident; we're trying to piece it together." He said police would withhold her name "until the investigation is complete or until we get sufficient information to release the names of both victims."
The officer was taken to Juan F. Luis Hospital for treatment, and there, Hannah said, authorities encountered the other victim, who said he had been shot as he was riding his motorcycle. The man, described as being in his 40s, was transported to Puerto Rico for medical treatment for multiple bullet wounds.
Police first received a report of shots having been fired around 11 p.m. Sunday. The Corrections office told authorities she realized she had been shot after hearing the sound of gunfire.
According to Stridiron, under whose jurisdiction the Bureau of Corrections falls, the officer was alone in her vehicle, on her way home from work, and was showered with shattered glass from the windshield of her car when the shooting began.
Authorities said she took cover and returned fire but could not say whether any she struck anyone.
The officer "happened to be going home in a Corrections vehicle, which is a white Blazer," Stridiron said on Monday. "I suspect that the white Blazer was mistaken by one of the shooters for a vehicle that had been involved in an earlier shooting incident in the same area." In that incident, he said, someone in "a small white vehicle" had engaged in gunfire with someone riding a motorcycle.
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