1 Dead and a Police Officer Is Injured in Memphis Shooting
MEMPHIS — One person was fatally shot and a police officer was critically injured on Thursday afternoon in what the authorities described on social media as a “police-involved shooting” at a library in Memphis.
The Memphis Police Department, which has been under intense scrutiny after the beating that led to the death of Tyre Nichols last month, said that the person who was shot had been pronounced dead at the scene. The officer was taken to a hospital in “extremely critical” condition, the department said.
The police said the shooting took place after officers had responded to a call at the library at 12:32 p.m.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, a state agency that scrutinizes police shootings, said on Twitter that the local district attorney, Steven J. Mulroy, had asked its agents to investigate the shooting.
The agency, which is also investigating Mr. Nichols’s death, said it would provide updates at the scene.
Neither agency immediately provided details about what had led up to the shooting, nor did they elaborate on who or how many people had fired weapons.
Police officers could be seen walking in and out of the Poplar-White Station Library after the shooting and had cordoned it off with yellow tape.
The library is in an upscale area of the East Memphis neighborhood, surrounded by restaurants, bars and a Whole Foods grocery store. Directly behind the library is a 34-story office building called Clark Tower.
Sundiata Williams, who works in Clark Tower, said she was going downstairs to pick up a pizza around lunch time when she discovered that security had locked the front door to her office building.
“It kind of blew me,” she said. “I was coming down for lunch and they were like, ‘No, go that way.’”
Mr. Mulroy’s office is leading the prosecution of five Memphis police officers who have been charged with second-degree murder in Mr. Nichols’s death after a videotaped beating in which officers punched and kicked Mr. Nichols and struck him with a baton.
Jessica Jaglois contributed reporting.
