CHARLOTTE, NC– President Joe Biden is expected to travel to North Carolina on Thursday to meet with the family members of four officers killed earlier this week in the deadliest attack on US law enforcement since 2016.
The president will visit Wilmington across the state that day and plans to add a stop in Charlotte to meet with local officials and the families of officers shot Monday while serving an arrest warrant, according to a person familiar with the case.
The four officers were killed when a task force made up of officers from several agencies arrived in the residential area of the city of 900,000 residents to try to capture 39-year-old Terry Clark Hughes Jr. to capture, who had received a warrant for the possession of a firearm by an ex. -felon and on the run to escape in Lincoln County, North Carolina. Hughes was also murdered.
Four other officers were injured during the shootout, and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a 40-caliber pistol and ammunition were found at the scene. The dead were identified as Sam Poloche and William Elliott of the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Joshua Eyer; and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks.
After the attack, Biden offered his condolences and support to the community, calling the slain officers “heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice and rushed into danger to protect us.”
“We must do more to protect our law enforcement officers. That means we need to fund them so they have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep us safe. And it means additional action must be taken to combat the scourge of gun violence. Now,” Biden said in a statement, calling on congressional leaders to pass an assault weapons ban among other gun control measures.
Also on Wednesday, a local police chief said an officer in his force who was shot on Monday has undergone surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. David W. Onley, the police chief of Statesville in the Charlotte metropolitan area, offered his condolences and “unwavering solidarity with our law enforcement brothers during this difficult time” on Wednesday, according to a statement from his office.
One of the four officers injured in the attack was Cpl. Casey Hoover of the Statesville Police Department, who was a member of the task force. He was shot in the upper body, an area not protected by his bulletproof vest.
Hoover was taken by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police to a hospital in Charlotte, where he underwent surgery. Onley said the officer, who worked for the Statesville Police Department for eight years, is now stable and expected to make a full recovery and “exemplifies the courage and resilience of our law enforcement community.”
Law enforcement officials were still investigating Wednesday, trying to determine a precise timeline of events and whether Hughes acted alone or with a second gunman.
Hughes’ criminal record in North Carolina dates back more than a decade. It includes prison sentences and convictions for burglary, reckless driving, evading arrest and illegally possessing a gun as a former felon, according to state records.
The attack was the deadliest day for US law enforcement in a single incident since five officers were killed by a sniper during a protest in Dallas in 2016.
___ Miller reported from Washington.