Two Stockton, Calif., police officers were badly injured and required extrication from their patrol car after they crashed while responding to assist in the arrest of a shooting suspect early Wednesday in central Stockton, authorities said.
The officers were taken to a hospital with serious injuries, and one had to undergo surgery, but both were listed in stable condition Wednesday afternoon, Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department, told the Stockton Record. Police did not disclose the nature or extent of the officers' injuries, and their names were not released.
The shooting occurred shortly before 2 a.m. after a man and a woman in one vehicle were cut off by a man in another vehicle, police said. The driver of the second vehicle, identified by police as 32-year-old Jimmie Lee Turner, then opened fire on the victims, authorities said.
Neither of the victims was injured, but their vehicle was struck by gunfire before Turner drove away, police said. Officers responded to the area, found Turner's vehicle and began a traffic stop, authorities said.
Two officers in another patrol car were en route to assist arresting officers when their vehicle struck a tree in the center median on North El Dorado Street near Jamestown Street, just south of West March Lane, police said. Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to extricate both officers from their patrol car, officials said.
