One of the suspects in the fatal shooting of a Delaware State Police trooper at a Bear area Wawa Wednesday is dead, shot after a nearly 21 hour stand-off with police in Middletown.
State Police say the unnamed suspect emerged from the home in the Brick Mill Farm development he’d been barricaded in overnight and engaged police shortly after 9:15 this morning. He was shot by law enforcement and pronounced dead at the scene just before 9:30 a.m.
The suspect killed had been occasionally shooting at police surrounding the home during the stand-off, including as recently as 4 am Thursday.
He was one of two people State Police says were involved in the shooting death of Corporal Stephen Ballard yesterday. Ballard was shot around noon after approaching the two people in a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot of the Wawa on Route 40 at Salem Church Road.
The 32 year old Ballard – an 8½ year veteran of the State Police - died a short time later at Christiana Hospital.
"This is a sad day for our state and the Delaware State Police family. We ask that you keep the trooper’s family and the members of Delaware State Police family in your thoughts and prayers," said State Police superintendent Nathaniel McQueen Wednesday, announcing Ballard had died.
Ballard is just the 19th Delaware State Trooper killed in the line of duty in department's 94-year history, and the first since Corporal Christopher Shea was struck by a drunk driver in 2004. Ballard is the fourth to be killed by gunfire, and the first killed by gunfire since 1972,.
The other suspect in Ballard's death was arrested on the shooting scene without incident, according to police.
