U.S News

VANSANT, Va. – Two sheriff's deputies were killed and digit others scraped in a actuation at a garner yard, and a venture was killed by personnel after a search, in a agricultural crossway of south Virginia that saw a deadly disturbance in 2002.

Buchanan County deputies work a report of a pillage at Roger's Service Center in Vansant on Sun salutation were met by gunfire from daylong range, Virginia State Police said. Two were impact and died at the scene. Two others who arrived also were shot, said State Police Sgt. Steve Lowe.

One help has life-threatening injuries and the another was in earnest condition, land personnel said. No obloquy were free New Sunday.

A light rite for the quaternary officers was planned weekday evening at the President County Courthouse in Grundy, according to digit Facebook pages set up in take of the deputies.

Christina Stiltner lives crossways the street from the garner field and had just walked into her bag with her 10-year-old son when she heard "pow, pow, pow."

She unsealed her front entranceway and saw digit help separate into a neighbor's yard. She heard another "pow" and the help went down. He was digit of the injured, she said.

"It scares you so much," she said. "I sat there thinking `what's the variety to 911'? It shocked me so badly, I didn't undergo the variety to 911."

Residents said such violence is rare in the agricultural area of most 1,000 people, though in January 2002, a student unsealed fire on the Appalachian School of Law campus in Grundy just downbound the road from Vansant after acquisition he had flunked discover of school.

The school's dean, a academic and a student were killed in the attack. Three another students were wounded. The shooter, saint Odighizuwa, pleaded blameable and was sentenced to chronicle in prison.

"This is a laid-back community. Everybody knows everybody," said Tivis O'Quinn, 68, who has lived in Vansant for 40 years and operates a playing inferior than a knot from the garner yard. "Nothing like this ever takes place, eliminate for the law edifice shooting."

Police did not say what variety of instrument was used, but Lowe said the venture effort from daylong range. The someone of the garner field told personnel his playing was existence robbed and he had closed the suspect's vehicle with his own.

State personnel and another officers institute the venture after a two-hour see and after "some variety of engagement" they effort and killed him, Lowe said.

"I'm not sure what the disagreement was when they encountered him," Lowe said. "Apparently he was identified as the correct person."

Lowe said he didn't undergo if the man fired on police, or if he was armed at the time.

Stiltner said she knew all the deputies involved in the move because they would often stop by the pedal station and edifice where she works.

Stiltner said she wasn't allowed to return to her bag seven hours after the shootings ended. Several another residents were discover of their homes New Sunday.

Vansant is a former combust mining municipality in the mountainous region of south Virginia. O'Quinn said the accord experiences "little petty thefts now and then," but null like what occurred Sunday.

On display in O'Quinn's obligation was a 2011 calendar of the President County Sheriff's Department. The picture features the department's 47 members, including Foster and 24 uniformed deputies.

Buchanan County Sheriff Ray Foster titled the actuation "one of a kind" for his department but declined to say anymore.

According to the website The Officer Down Memorial Page, the terminal President County sheriff to expire in the line of obligation was in 1975 of a hunch attack. The website lists quaternary on-duty deaths for the department since 1905. The terminal by gunfire was in 1964.

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