A police officer in Arkansas is in stable condition after being shot during a confrontation with a man who according to authorities had kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from North Carolina
LONOKE, Arkansas. – An Arkansas police officer was hospitalized Sunday after he was shot during a clash at a McDonald’s restaurant with a man who kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from North Carolina, authorities said.
According to Arkansas state police, the suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after fleeing authorities. The girl found herself safe.
Two police officers from Lonoke, Arkansas, clashed with the driver of an SUV parked at the fast food restaurant Saturday night after the vehicle was connected to a North Carolina child abduction case. Lonoke is about 43 miles east of Little Rock.
The driver, later identified as William Robert Ice, 38, of Jackson Center, Pennsylvania, began firing at officers as he exited the SUV. One officer was hit while the other, who was not injured, fired back when Ice re-entered the vehicle and fled, according to state police.
An Arkansas state soldier saw the SUV and chased it until the vehicle pulled over on a snow bank. The 14-year-old fled the vehicle and was insured by a state agent.
Inside the SUV, a soldier found Ice critically wounded from what previously appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Ice later died at a Little Rock hospital.
Arkansas State Police, working with sheriff’s deputies in Davidson County, North Carolina, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, determined that the girl had been abducted.
Pennsylvania police authorities also wanted to look for ice in connection with other cases of child predators, according to Arkansas state police.