A Warrior police officer investigating drug sales was shot multiple times Thursday night and rushed to UAB Hospital with an escort from multiple police agencies.
The officer was conscious when he arrived at UAB’s emergency room and was listed in stable condition, according to Warrior Police Chief Scott Praytor.
One suspect was taken into custody. His identity has not yet been released.
Police early Friday identified the wounded officer as Det. Lee Glenn.
Glenn, the 33-year-old father of a young daughter, is assigned to the narcotics unit and has been with the department for approximately five years.
Glenn last year was involved in the shooting on Interstate 65 that left Kimberly Police Officer Nick O’Rear dead. That shooting happened Feb. 4, 2020. A suspect was charged in O’Rear’s slaying and with attempted murder for shooting at Glenn.
Thursday night’s gunfire erupted about 9:40 p.m. on McCart Drive, just of Warrior’s Main Street.
Praytor, who was just named chief of the small north Jefferson County city in June, said the officer was in the preliminary stages of the investigation when he noticed a subject walking in the street toward the car that he was in. The officer got out and the subject started to run, the chief said.
The officer told him not to run. The suspect then turned around and opened fire on the officer, hitting the officer multiple times in the chest.
It wasn’t immediately clear, Praytor said, whether the officer was wearing a bullet-proof vest.
“Our main priority was getting him to the hospital,’' the chief said, “and you can image how chaotic that was.”
The officer did return fire, but the suspect was not hit.
Officers from across Jefferson and Blount counties flocked to Warrior as soon at the shooting was reported. The wounded officer was transported to UAB by Warrior Fire and was escorted by multiple police vehicles, including officers from Adamsville and Graysville.
Praytor said he spoke with the officer. “He was stable and he was looking better than when he was transported so that goods news,’' Praytor said. “I would ask that everybody pray for this officer. He’s a good officer. He was out there doing a good job.”
“It’s just one of those nights as a chief that you don’t want to be here,’' Praytor said.
.Praytor said the suspect is in custody of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s State Bureau of Investigation, which will lead the probe.
“Right now some of our investigators are going through what the officer had and his belongings to see what actually happened,’' Praytor said.
The chief praised the response of all of the agencies that responded to help. “When it’s a smaller city, you depend on that help,’' he said. “Everybody came together and they were able to secure the crime scene, get my officer help, get him to the hospital, get the suspect in custody and end the danger tot her rest of the citizens of Warrior fairly quickly and I do want to thank them for that.”
“This doesn’t just happen in big cities,’' Praytor said. “Anywhere you have police officers working this kind of thing can happen anytime. We have to appreciate our officers who are out there at night, keeping us safe.”
“We talk about it every day here, that this can happen at any time,’' he said. “We have to be on our guard. We’re just praying that our officer comes through this OK and we can heal as a department and as a city.”
Glenn is all too familiar with the dangers of the job.
In the 2020 shooting, Glenn he was parked alongside I-65 and spotted an approaching black BMW. When the driver of the BMW – later identified as 38-year-old Preston Johnson – spotted the patrol cruiser, he began to drive erratically. Glenn activated his emergency equipment, but Johnson failed to stop, and a chase began.
As Glenn pursued the black BMW, testimony from an earlier hearing showed, O’Rear heard the radio traffic and joined in. When he entered I-65, he was ahead of Johnson’s vehicle and Glenn was behind the suspect.
Authorities said a woman with Johnson told police that when Johnson noticed a police officer behind him, he told her to grab a gun. She refused. At that point, she told agents, Johnson reached into the back seat and retrieved a long gun, which court records state was a Norinco Mak-90 AK-47.
Johnson, according to the witness, fired through the front windshield at O’Rear’s vehicle and then fired through the back windshield at Glenn’s vehicle.
Glenn was not injured. O’Rear was rushed to UAB Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
______
©2021 Advance Local Media LLC.
Visit al.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
