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Police slaying suspect dies after shootout; trooper wounded
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A Massachusetts State Police diver uses a metal detector to search Stoneville Pond near the site where Auburn police Officer Ronald Tarentino was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Auburn, Mass., on May 22. A suspect is on the loose, authorities said. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette via AP/Rick Cinclair)
T
he suspect in the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts police officer died after an exchange of gunfire Sunday as authorities closed in on him at an Oxford residence, police said.
The man, identified as 35-year-old Jorge Zambrano, burst out of a closet and opened fire on the officers as they approached him inside the apartment, authorities said at a news conference. He was taken to a hospital where he died.
A Massachusetts State trooper, also wounded, was hospitalized but was up and walking later in the evening, officials said. His name wasn't released.
The manhunt began after Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino was fatally shot during a traffic stop about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Tarentino stopped the vehicle on a residential road, and the vehicle's occupant shot the officer then fled the scene, Auburn Police Chief Andrew Sluckis said earlier Sunday. Auburn is about 45 miles southwest of Boston.
The 42-year-old Tarentino was taken to UMass Medical Center in Worcester, where he was pronounced dead. He had been with the Auburn police force for two years and before that worked with the Leicester Police Department in his hometown.
At the news conference after the manhunt concluded with the death of the suspect, Sluckis assured the central Massachusetts community that residents were safe and that any threat to them was over.
After Tarentino's shooting, state police divers searched a pond near the traffic stop and the manhunt got underway full force.
"We will leave no stone unturned in our investigation to determine who was involved," Sluckis said. He called Tarentino a "dedicated and brave public servant."
State and local police officers lined up outside the hospital as a police vehicle, escorted by a procession, took Tarentino's body to the state medical examiner's office in Boston, where the vehicle was met by another large contingent of officers.
Tarentino was the second police officer to die in the line of duty in Massachusetts this year. State police Trooper Thomas Clardy was killed March 16 when his cruiser was struck by another vehicle.
Outside the Auburn police station, the American flag was lowered to half-staff. The town's residents left bouquets of flowers and miniature American flags piled at the bottom of a stone monument dedicated to law enforcement officers who've been killed in the line of duty.
Residents in Tarentino's Leicester neighborhood remembered him Sunday as a pleasant family man. Tarentino is survived by a wife and three children.
Phillip Stanikmas told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that Tarentino kept an eye out for his 91-year-old mother when she was home alone. Stanikmas said he was "distraught" when Tarentino left the Leicester Police Department because he was a "great guy."
"I wanted him to stay in Leicester," Stanikmas said. (ags)
