Two Mobile, Ala., police officers traded gunfire with a rape suspect Tuesday night, fatally shooting the 39-year-old man in his Josephine Allen apartment home, authorities said.
Cornelius Johnson refused to speak to officers who knocked on his Herman Drive door sometime after 10:30 p.m. to question him in the rape of a 15-year-old female relative, interim police Chief Lester Hargrove said.
Instead, a 17-year-old boy answered the front door, then tried to slam it shut when Johnson yelled from upstairs to close the door.
An officer shoved his foot forward and held the door open, Hargrove said, as Johnson emerged at the top of a staircase, his hand resting on a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun at his hip.