Dudley, NC — Three Wayne County deputies were shot while serving an involuntary commitment warrant in Dudley on Monday morning.
Joel Gillie, the spokesman for Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, said one deputy was at Wayne UNC Health Care while two were flown to ECU Health. The conditions of the deputies were not immediately known.
“Right now, our thoughts and prayers are with the individuals with our department and their families and they deal with their injuries,” said Gillie.
The shooting happened around 10:30 am at a home in the 2500 block of Arrington Bridge Road. Heavily armed officers from the State Highway Patrol, WCSO and surrounding agencies continued to surround a home in the area at noon on Monday.
Gillie said the suspect was still barricaded inside the home on Monday afternoon. Information on who filed the commitment order and what weapons were used in the shooting was not released.
The sheriff’s office did not release the name of the deputies shot or say how serious any injuries to the deputies are. It is not yet clear who fired the shot.
It is standard for three deputies to serve an involuntary commitment warrant, Gillie said, and deputies did not have a history with the suspect.
According to the Gun Violence Archives, there have been six incidents in NC this year where an officer was shot and injured or killed. Nationwide, the database shows there have been at least 201.
Between Jan. 1 2019 and today, North Carolina has had at least 73 incidents where an officer was shot and injured or killed. That puts our state as eighth in the nation for these types of incidents over that period of time.
During that same time period nationwide, there were more than 1180 incidents. They’ve gone up over time. From 297 in 2019, 330 in 2020 and 360 incidents reported to GVA for 2021. At this point last year, there were 190 incidents reported so we are outpacing it.
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