Suspect in shooting of Dallas paramedic found dead in home

[May 02, 2017]  (Reuters) - A man suspected of shooting a Dallas paramedic on Monday was found dead of an apparent suicide after a police robot search of a local home, which also uncovered the body of a second man in the same residence, officials told a news conference.

The paramedic underwent surgery and was in a Dallas hospital intensive care unit, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and police said, without releasing the names of anyone involved in the incident.

The incident began when Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics arrived to treat a civilian who had been shot. The suspect then arrived on the scene and opened fire, wounding the paramedic, the city of Dallas said in a statement.

Police who arrived on the scene were also fired upon and one officer suffered minor injuries, Rawlings and police said. One officer pulled the paramedic out and drove him to a hospital, police said.

The initial shooting victim was also hospitalized and is in an intensive care unit, Rawlings said.

"(The paramedic) is going to have to undergo extensive medical treatment to get him back up to par," Rawlings said.

Police brought in the robot to search the home where they believed the shooting suspect was hiding and came across the two bodies.

The suspected shooter died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and there was no information yet released on the relation between him and the other man found dead in the room, police said.

Dallas police officers embrace after police responded to a shooting incident in Dallas, Texas, U.S. May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Brandon Wade

Dallas was the scene last July of a mass shooting of police officers in which five were killed and seven wounded. The assailant, a former U.S. Army reservist who had posted an angry rant against white people on a Facebook page, was killed in a police-initiated explosion after being cornered in a parking garage.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)

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