The Latest: Fort Worth officer shot during gun battle dies
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the shooting of an undercover police officer in Fort Worth (all times local):
1:55 a.m.
Authorities say an undercover police officer who was shot in the head when he and other officers disrupted a Fort Worth bar robbery has died.
Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said during a news conference shortly after midnight that Officer Garrett Hull died Friday at JPS Hospital.
Fitzgerald said: "We've lost a true hero. Someone that dedicated more than one tour of service to this great city was senselessly killed by three known criminals, two of which are in custody now."
Hull was shot early Friday by one of three suspects who were attempting to rob patrons of the bar.
Police say the suspect who shot Hull was then killed in an exchange of gunfire. Two other suspects fled the bar but were later apprehended.
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1 p.m.
Authorities say the three suspects involved in a gun battle with Fort Worth police that left an officer critically wounded have lengthy criminal histories and are suspected in series of robberies that primarily targeted Latino bars.
Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald told reporters that the suspect killed in the exchange of gunfire early Friday outside a bar was Dacion Steptoe.
Authorities say it was Steptoe who shot undercover officer Garrett Hull in the head as Hull and other officers approached Steptoe and two other suspects when the trio left the bar after robbing it and the 10 people who were inside at the time.
The other suspects were apprehended and Fitzgerald identified one of them as Samuel Mayfield, who was wanted on warrants for theft, assault and drug possession.
Hull, who has a wife and two daughters, is in critical condition at a hospital.
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10:30 a.m.
Authorities have identified the undercover police officer who was shot in the head when he and other officers disrupted a Fort Worth bar robbery as Garrett Hull.
Officer Brad Perez, a police spokesman, confirmed that Hull was the officer who was shot early Friday by one of three suspects who were attempting to rob patrons of the bar.
Perez says the suspect who shot Hull was then killed in an exchange of gunfire. Two other suspects fled the bar but were later apprehended.
Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald at an earlier news conference declined to identify Hull at the time but described him as a well-liked member of the force who left the department at one point and then later returned.
Hull was listed in critical condition at a Fort Worth hospital.
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6 a.m.
Authorities in Texas say an undercover police officer was shot in the head and a suspect was killed when a police unit tried to stop a robbery at a bar.
Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald says the officer was part of an undercover team that was trailing three people who were suspected in a string of robberies. Fitzgerald says a mix of undercover and uniformed officers tried to arrest the suspects, but one of them opened fire early Friday, striking the undercover officer.
Fitzgerald says police returned fire, killing one of the suspects. The other two suspects were arrested shortly thereafter.
Police say the officer is in critical condition at a Fort Worth hospital.
No one inside the bar was harmed during the shootout.
