US domestic violence callout ends in deadly ambush

An investigation that brought police officers to a quiet country road in Pennsylvania on Wednesday originated with a phone call about a man who appeared to be stalking a former girlfriend.

- STORY: SONIA A RAO / NYT

It ended in an ambush.

In a case that has shaken the close-knit communities of York County, Pennsylvania, officials on Thursday detailed the sequence of events that led a gunman to fatally shoot three officers with a high-powered rifle and injure two others.

Officials identified the officers killed as Detective Sgt Cody Becker and Detectives Isaiah Emenheiser and Mark Baker. The injured officers remain hospitalised.

Authorities identified the gunman as Matthew J Ruth, 24, of Hanover, Pennsylvania, who was fatally shot in the encounter in the township of North Codorus, just outside Hanover.

On the night before the shooting, Ruth had been spotted with binoculars outside the home of his former girlfriend and her mother, who had called police, officials said.

Officers began searching for Ruth that night, but they did not find him until Wednesday afternoon. By then, he had been charged with stalking and trespassing.

And he had made his way inside the home of the women, who had already fled for their safety, Timothy Barker, the district attorney for York County, told a news conference on Thursday.

When the officers entered the home, Ruth fired multiple rounds from an AR-15-style rifle with a suppressor, Barker said, and the fight later spilled outside.

The entire encounter lasted for about two minutes before the gunman was killed.