TUCSON, ARIZONA –A Pima County Sheriff’s deputy was wounded in Tucson in a shooting with a motorist on Tuesday. The deputy returned fire and ended up killing the man who shot him. While the deputy had to go to the hospital afterwards, he wasn’t injured very seriously. Thankfully, he’ll recover from this ordeal.

Tucson Shooting Timeline

The shooting started as a traffic stop gone wrong. Pima County Sheriff’s Deputy Jose Velasco pulled the driver over because of a traffic violation on Tuesday, around 3:30. The driver of the vehicle then made an attempt to get away from the officer. Unfortunately for him, the officer became caught on the man’s vehicle and was dragged for a short distance.

When he got up, Velasco, a motorcycle officer, went back to his bike to chase the man down. He caught up to him when the man stopped at a traffic light. Velasco got off the motorcycle and tried to approach the man. However, the man got out of his vehicle and fired shots at Velasco. As a result, he got an injury in his leg.

Velasco went to his radio to call for backup, then returned fire nearly immediately. He managed to kill the suspect. The deputy then went to the hospital immediately after the shooting happened. Although he had injuries from the shots, his life is not in danger.

Police Investigation Begins

Police still have not found out the name of the killed man. They closed down the area around the crime scene to traffic for a while. There were as many as two dozen officers who responded to Velasco’s calls for help, making the area quite chaotic for a while. After a bit, they were in fact able to reopen the road. Hopefully, traffic won’t be too bad on the south side!