Police: Woman dead after exchange of gunfire with police
MILFORD, Ohio (AP) — Police say an officer shot and killed a woman after she fired repeatedly on officers outside an apartment building near Cincinnati.
Chief Mike Mills of the Miami Township police department said the Clermont County communications center began receiving calls at about 5 p.m. Friday about an armed woman in the parking lot of the Berry Lane Apartments. Later calls said she had fired two rounds from a gun and had approached a resident, Mills said.
Mills said the woman fired at arriving officers who took shelter behind cars in the lot and then fired another round at an officer who aimed a gun at her. That officer fired six rounds, and the woman went down. Police said a medical aid flight was called but the woman was pronounced dead before she could be flown to a hospital for treatment.
The woman's name hasn't been released pending notification of her relatives, and the name of the officer who fired also wasn't immediately released. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation will investigate the shooting.
Mills said "mental health" is believed to have been a factor in the case, but police don't believe a prior dispute with someone at the complex was involved because people there said the woman appeared to have been firing indiscriminately.
He said officers have training in handling people with mental health issues and an on-staff mental health worker was at the scene from the beginning, but that person could not be brought in while the woman was still firing rounds.
