Authorities detain Scott Michael Greene after early Wednesday shootings as Clinton campaign cancels event in Iowa city with Tim Kaine and Bill Clinton

Two police officers were shot and killed in ambush-style attacks in the Des Moines area, prompting a warning of a “clear and present danger” to other officers in and around the Iowa city before authorities captured the suspect.

Authorities said on Wednesday morning that they had captured Scott Michael Greene, hours after they named him as a suspect in the fatal shooting. It is unclear whether Greene is the sole suspect.

Police said officers were searching to Greene, a 46-year-old white man, because they believed he had information about the killings.

“Our detectives are looking to speak with Mr Greene right now,” Sgt Paul Parizek of Des Moines police said before Greene was captured. “We think that he’s got some information that’s pretty critical to closing this case out.”

Police have not released additional details about their investigation, and declined to speculate about the killer’s motive.



The Des Moines police department said the shootings took place early on Wednesday. Officers responded to a report of shots fired at the intersection of 70th Street and Aurora Avenue at about 1.06am. The first officers arriving on the scene found an Urbandale officer who had been shot and killed as he was seated in his car.



About 20 minutes later, a second officer from Des Moines’ police department was also found shot in his car near the intersection of Merle Hay Road and Sheridan Drive, about two miles from the first incident.

The officer was transported to hospital and died shortly after.

Locations of the Des Moines shooting A map showing the locations of the two shootings.

Parizek told a news conference: “In all appearances, it looks like these officers were ambushed. On the surface, it doesn’t look like there was any interaction between these officers and whoever the coward was that shot them while they were sat in their cars.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign moved quickly to cancel a scheduled campaign event in Des Moines during which vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine and former president Bill Clinton were scheduled to appear.

“Due to the tragic shooting of Des Moines and Urbandale police officers last night, the Des Moines Get Out the Vote event with Tim Kaine, President Bill Clinton, and Ben Harper at the Des Moines Social Club has been canceled,” the campaign said in a statement.

The fraught relationship between police and citizens, and particularly black Americans, has been a flashpoint during the campaign in the wake of a national conversation of police killings of black Americans. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has dubbed himself the “law and order candidate” and has said that “we have to give power back to the police, because crime is rampant”.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that he was praying for the families of both officers. “An attack on those who keep us safe is an attack on us all,” he said.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Praying for the families of the two Iowa police who were ambushed this morning. An attack on those who keep us safe is an attack on us all.

Trump supporter and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke in Urbandale hours after the officers were killed.

“I want to begin by expressing my condolences, my heartfelt sorrow at the loss of two police officers, particularly what appears to be under the conditions of ambush,” Giuliani said before Greene was identified or captured. “I don’t understand this hatred for the police now, this anger at the police.”

The officers had not yet been identified as police were still in the process of informing their families. “These guys were sitting in their car doing nothing wrong. There is a clear and present danger to police officers right now,” Parizek said.

The sergeant added that the department had paired officers to ensure greater safety but emphasised that police in the area would continue their work as usual.

“You’re not going to see any difference in the service that we’re providing and the way we do it. You’ve just got to look at the people that work here, you know that you’ve got the best police department in the nation right here … This is what we do, this is who we are. We’re going to be here tomorrow, we’re going to be here tonight.

“We’re very well aware of the society we’re living in right now and there’s not so positive views of law enforcement [but] if we don’t provide the service in the manner that we do, the personal-type service that we do, we’re nothing more than an occupying army.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A police photographer takes pictures of a Des Moines police vehicle. Photograph: Brian Frank/Reuters

Local roads have been closed indefinitely while police carry out their evidence-gathering, which will include video from the dashboard camera of the police cars.

The Des Moines public school system said that because of the location of the investigation, the Urbandale school district had cancelled classes for the day.

While it determined that there was no need to cancel classes in the rest of the city, it said that it would remain in touch with the police throughout the day and would take additional precautions if necessary.

Iowa’s governor, Terry Branstad, and lieutenant governor, Kim Reynolds, said they were briefed about the incidents shortly after they took place. “An attack on public safety officers is an attack on the public safety of all Iowans,” they said in a joint statement.

“We call on Iowans to support our law enforcement officials in bringing this suspect to justice. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the police officers who were tragically killed in the line of duty as well as the officers who continue to put themselves in harm’s way.”

Greene was spotted near Redfield, Iowa, located one county west of Des Moines, shortly after his photograph was circulated by authorities.

Police told the Des Moines Register that they were investigating a video that was apparently uploaded by a Scott Greene to YouTube, in which Greene recorded police officers asking him to leave the stands of a high school football game in Urbandale. The high school is located at the same intersection where one of the officers was killed. The clip, which was uploaded about three weeks ago, is titled “Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School 10/14/16”. A separate video uploaded to YouTube on the same day, shows a still image of a white man holding a Confederate flag.

Sgt Chad Underwood of Urbandale police said the incident on Wednesday was the first time an officer from the department had been shot and killed in the line of duty. It was also the first incident of its kind in the wider Des Moines area since two officers were gunned down in separate incidents in 1977.

Two Des Moines officers, Susan Farrell and Carlos Puente-Morales, died earlier this year when their vehicle was struck head-on by a drunk driver who was travelling the wrong way along a road.



Across the US 49 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty by gunfire so far in 2016, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a non-profit that tracks police deaths.

In October, two officers were fatally shot and a third injured while responding to a family disturbance call in Palm Springs, California. In July, three officers were killed and three wounded by a gunman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A week earlier, five officers were killed and seven wounded in Dallas, Texas, during protests against the shooting of black men by police. It was the deadliest day for US law enforcement officers since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

