A police officer was shot and a suspect killed during an early-morning confrontation on Long Island Friday, according to authorities.
A Nassau County police officer became suspicious of a man in an SUV in the East Meadow Plaza parking lot on Hempstead Turnpike at about 5:20 a.m., and approached the vehicle, said authorities.
The officer confronted the man and detained him outside the vehicle, said authorities. When a second officer came to assist, the man ran back to the vehicle and locked himself inside.
That's when he "got into a very violent confrontation" with the first officer, according to Lt. Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police Department.
Amid a struggle, the suspect managed to remove the officer's gun from his holster, according to Smith. Several rounds were fired from that gun, one of which struck the officer in his left leg.
The second officer on the scene chased down the suspect and shot him twice in the upper torso, killing him, according to authorities.
Investigators didn't elaborate on the suspicious activity that prompted the officers to approach the suspect, identified as 41-year-old Dwayne Oxley of East Meadow.
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Oxley's fiancee, Lora Ruocco, told NBC New York in a phone interview that she was devastated. She said Oxley had been out the previous night and the shopping center is around the corner from her home.
Ruocco said when she went to identify him, "he had bruises all over his face and head."
"They couldn't just handcuff him and put him in jail, they had to kill him," she said.
Oxley had a 14-year-old son, according to Ruocco.
The wounded officer was taken to Winthrop University Medical Center where he is undergoing surgery on his leg. According to Smith, the officer is in his early 30s and has been on the force for about four years to five years. He is expected to be OK.
The second officer who shot the suspect is being counseled for trauma, said Smith. He is also in his early 30s and has been on the force for four to five years.
Both officers were from Nassau County Police's First Precinct.
