An officer with a gun stops a vehicle from entering downtown Cold Spring, Minn., after a Cold Spring police officer was fatally shot while conducting a routine check near a bar.(Photo: By Eric Stromgren, The St. Cloud Times/AP)
COLD SPRING, Minn. -- Authorities say the police officer who was
fatally shot in central Minnesota is 31-year-old Tom Decker of the Cold
Spring Police Department.
Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner says
Decker died at the scene after he was shot late Thursday behind an
apartment in Cold Spring near St. Cloud.
Sanner said a 34-year-old man is being held Friday on suspicion of second-degree murder in Decker's death.
Stearns
County Chief Deputy Bruce Bechtold says he believes the suspect was in
the residence that the officer was called to check.
No Stearns
County officer has been killed in the line of duty since St. Joseph
officer Brian Klinefelter was shot in 1996 during the arrest of three
robbery suspects.
Associated Press