West Bloomfield

WB officer killed while responding to gunfire report

By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

WEST BLOOMFIELD — A West Bloomfield police officer was shot and killed while responding to a report of gunfire in West Bloomfield the night of Sept. 9, police reported.

According to West Bloomfield Police Lt. Tim Diamond, the officer is identified as Patrick O’Rourke, 39, a 12-year veteran of the force.

“He was a model police officer and a model family man,” Diamond said. “Couldn’t ask for a nicer guy."

Diamond said police received a call at around 10 p.m. Sept. 9 about a gunshot at a home in the 4000 block of Forest Edge. Family members reportedly fled from the home, and officers quickly responded, police said.

Diamond said officers who entered the home did not know at the time whether the gunshot heard had been self-inflicted, but they reportedly announced that they were the police and heard no response.

The officers reportedly went upstairs to a closed bedroom, and the suspect allegedly fired through the door and drywall, police said. O’Rourke was shot in the process, and other officers reportedly grabbed the injured officer and took him outside.

Paramedics transported O’Rourke to McLaren Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, where the officer was later pronounced dead, police said.

Diamond said the suspect was still barricaded in the home as of around 10 a.m. Sept. 10. The Oakland County Sheriff Department’s Special Response Team has been managing the scene, he said.

Police declined to give too many details about the suspect except noting that he is a middle-aged man. “We’ve received information that he was either recently divorced or going through a divorce,” Diamond said. “That may have precipitated some of this event.”

Anyone with information on the incident can call the West Bloomfield Police Department at (248) 975-9200.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Eric Czarnik at eczarnik@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1058.