FLORENCE, S.C. — A veteran South Carolina police officer was killed and six more officers were wounded after a man opened fire on law enforcement Florence, South Carolina Wednesday, according to our ABC affiliate WPDE in Myrtle Beach.
5 civilians were also wounded, officials said. Their conditions have not been released.
Officer Terrence Conway, 52, died after the suspect fired on officers trying to serve warrant at a home in a subdivision in West Florence, about an hour-and-a-half east of Columbia.
The shooter was taken in to custody. He's been identified as Fred Hopkins, 74, a disbarred lawyer and a military veteran who received disability payments after being wounded in the Vietnam War.
The sheriff's office said Hopkins fired on deputies investigating the sexual assault of a child. Officials said the officers were trying to serve a warrant involving an accusation that another person in the home sexually assaulted a foster child.
We're following this story out of South Carolina and will have updates on Channel 2 Action News at Noon.
Three Florence County sheriff’s deputies and three Florence City police officers were also shot. Their conditions have not been released.
During a news conference Wednesday night, Kirby spoke of Carraway, who just received his 30-year service pin from the department, as well as the other injured officers.
"We lost the bravest police officer we have ever known," Kirby said. "We will take care of our family because this is my family. These officers are my family. We will take care of them," Kirby said.
UPDATE: City of Florence spokesman John Wukela tells me that Terrence Carraway is the officer who died from his injuries. He had just received his 30-year service pin from the department. pic.twitter.com/oQGxbu4JaS
— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) October 4, 2018
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WPDE reports that Hopkins fell at the scene and is in the hospital. His condition has not been released.
The Associated Press reports that Hopkins posted on social media about being a competitive marksman and taking his children shooting with him.
Images captured from Frederick Hopkins’ Facebook show comments he made in 2014 talking about taking his 12-year-old to a shooting range and firing an M-14 rifle “set up exactly like one I used in Viet Nam in 69-70.”
“I just love the smell of gunpowder in the mornin’s,” he wrote in the post to commemorate his 70th birthday. The post also says he had been “shooting competitively since 1984 and lovin’ it.”
Other posts, from 2016, show images of rifles and say he was the “South Carolina 3-Gun Silhouette Champion for 2011.”
The incident took place at at the Vintage Place subdivision off Hoffmeyer Road. Officials said the standoff lasted nearly two hours.
Cox Media Group
