An off-duty officer who was killed in a shootout with a neighbor, and there is not enough evidence to charge the neighbor with murder, a police chief has said on Tuesday.
Police Director Toney Armstrong told reporters that witnesses gave authorities different stories about what happened when the officer, who was on his way to work, ‘exchanged words’ with his neighbor, Lorenzo Clark, 36.
It is not clear what the two men were talking about when the conversation escalated or who fired the first shot, Armstrong said.
Officer Terence Olridge, 31, died after the shootout Sunday afternoon. Clark is being held on $100,000 bond on a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Olridge was shot multiple times as the encounter turned into an exchange of gunfire on a typically quiet street where children play in the street and ride bicycles in Cordova, a Memphis suburb.
Clark told police he had a 9mm Glock handgun in his pants, took the gun out and started firing several shots in the street, according to an affidavit. Clark fired ‘several shots which resulted in a death,’ the affidavit said.
After the shooting, Clark surrendered peacefully, police said.
One neighbor, Karen Lax, told WMC that Clark had been in altercations with other neighbors over trivial matters before.
She says he once called another neighbor a ‘mother f*****’ for letting their dog defecate on his lawn. Lax added that Clark is married with a 9-year-old son.
Read More: Police chief says there’s not enough evidence for murder charge in officer’s death
