A suspect accused of fatally shooting an Ohio police officer Saturday night is dead after a standoff at a home several miles away from the initial shooting. Euclid Police Chief Scott Meyer said that officers were sent to a home Saturday night just before 10 p.m. after dispatchers received a call from a woman who said that she and her child were being threatened by the child’s father, CBS News reported.
Officers went into the backyard of the home, Meyer said, and were “ambushed by gunfire.” Officer Jacob Derbin was the only officer struck by gunfire, and he was rushed to a hospital, but died later in the night.
WOIO identified the suspect as Deshawn Anthony Vaughn, 24, and said he was last seen in a Volkswagen Passat.
He was later located about nine miles away at a home in Shaker Heights, where he was the subject of an hours long standoff with tactical teams, Meyer told CBS News. Vaughn refused to come out of the house, but was eventually found dead inside. Authorities did not say how he died or whether he exchanged gunfire with officers on the scene.
No one else was injured, officials said. Derbin, 23, was a military veteran who had been with the Euclid Police Department for less than a year, Meyer said. He was engaged to be married in July and was the son of a Euclid police officer. Meyer described the young man as “an amazing human being” with “a great heart” and “an incredible smile.”
“The world’s a better place with him in it,” he said.