MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An off-duty police officer died Sunday after being shot multiple times, the fourth Memphis police officer to be fatally shot in slightly more than four years, authorities said.
Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said Terence Olridge, 31, was taken to the Regional Medical Center, where he later died.
Officers got a call around 1 p.m. about a shooting at a home in the Memphis suburb of Cordova, Armstrong said. A male suspect is in custody, but Armstrong didn’t say whether the person has been charged.
Armstrong said the investigation is ongoing and that “details are sketchy.” Relatives of the officer could be seen crying outside the hospital.
Police blocked the street in front of the house where the shooting happened. A plainclothes detective spoke with a neighbor and uniformed officers also were on the scene.
Olridge joined the department in September 2014. He had a fiancee who is four months pregnant, Armstrong said.
Olridge is the fourth Memphis police officer to be fatally shot in slightly more than four years.
In August, Memphis police officer Sean Bolton was fatally shot in the line of duty.
Police have charged Tremaine Wilbourn, 29, who was on probation for an armed bank robbery, with first-degree murder in Bolton’s death.
Bolton was white, and Wilbourn is black.
Officer Tim Warren was killed while responding to a shooting at a downtown Memphis hotel in July 2011. In December 2012, Officer Martoiya Lang was killed while serving a warrant.
Dozens of people took to Facebook to offer condolences and prayers for Olridge’s family.
Postings on the Blue Lives Matter Memphis page also called for support for the Memphis Police Department, which has had two officers shot to death in about 2 1/2 months.
In past shootings, Armstrong has addressed the media outside the Regional Medical Center.
“I didn’t think that we’d be here again so soon,” Armstrong told reporters Sunday.
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