3 police officers killed, 2 injured in Pennsylvania shooting

PAUL KUEHNEL / USA TODAY NETWORK

A police officer is loaded into a Medevac helicopter after a shooting in York County’s North Codorus Township, Pennsylvania, today. Three law enforcement officers died and two other critically today as they tried to serve a warrant.

Three police officers were fatally shot and two others were seriously injured today while trying to serve a warrant in a rural part of York County, Pennsylvania, state police officials said.

The two who were injured in the shooting were in critical but stable condition at an area hospital, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, Col. Christopher Paris, said at a news conference this evening.

Paris said the shooter was fatally shot by the police.

The killings drew the attention of federal and state officials, and a visit by the governor. But it left its deepest mark on the residents of this county of farms in southeast Pennsylvania. Just seven months earlier, a 30-year-old police officer in York County was shot and killed after he responded to a hostage situation in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

“For the second time in less than a year, York County is a community in mourning,” the county commissioners said in a statement. “We ask all York Countians to, once again, lift each other up and support each other as we grieve together as one united community.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro arrived in the area within hours of the shooting and said he met with families of the officers who were killed. At a news conference, he also mentioned Andrew Duarte, the officer who had been killed earlier in the year.

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“It’s an extraordinary thing that these law enforcement families do,” the governor said. “They support the individual who puts on the uniform and runs toward danger. They’re there for them when they leave in the morning, and they pray throughout the day that they will come home at night.”

Shapiro, a Democrat, also said that he had spoken earlier with Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, with whom he had worked when they were both state attorneys general. He said that it “meant a lot to me that she reached out to offer her support and her prayers.” On the social platform X, Bondi called the violence a “scourge on our society.”

The shooting took place a little after 2 p.m. today, on a quiet country road a couple of miles outside of an old mill town.

Officers were there to serve a warrant, the state police said. At the news conference with the governor, Paris said that they were following up on a “domestic-related” investigation that had begun the day before, though he gave few other details, including the identities of the officers who were killed or the departments they worked for.

Studies of police responses have found that domestic violence-related calls are among the most dangerous situations officers face. A federal report from 2017 found that “calls related to domestic disputes and domestic related incidents” were responsible for the highest number of officer fatalities of any category of police calls.

After the shooting today, the local dispatch was full of calls for helicopters or ambulances to take the wounded to nearby hospitals. The two injured officers were taken to WellSpan York Hospital, where they were immediately taken to the operating room, said Daniel E. Carney, the chair of the surgery department.

As federal and state law enforcement agencies arrived in York County to help with the investigation and the aftermath, the state police took over 911 calls for the Northern York County Regional Police Department, an agency with 68 officers covering a dozen jurisdictions across roughly 215 square miles.

Paris said the investigation was still active and would be led by the state police, along with the York County district attorney’s office. He added that warrants were currently being served as part of the investigation.

In a post on social media, Bondi said agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene to support local law enforcement.

Dave W. Sunday, the state attorney general, had been the district attorney in York County for seven years until he took office in January. In a statement, he said that “having served alongside these officers, I know of their caliber, their professionalism and the lasting impact they had on our community.”

Earlier in the day, Shapiro was at an event in Chester, Pennsylvania, marking the progress in reducing gun homicides. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in Pittsburgh on political violence, which drew national attention. In York, this afternoon, he was talking about killings once again.

“We need to do better as a society,” he said. “We need to help the people who think that picking up a gun, picking up a weapon is the answer to resolving disputes.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company

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