June 13 (UPI) -- At least 25 Memphis police officers were injured late Wednesday during a tense standoff after a task force killed a wanted man during a public confrontation, authorities said.
The fugitive, who has not been officially identified, was attempting to leave an area in Memphis's Frayser neighborhood when he was confronted by agents of the U.S. Marshals Service-Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force.
"While attempting to stop the individual, he reportedly rammed his vehicle into the officers' vehicles multiple times before exiting with a weapon," the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said, adding the fugitive had several outstanding warrants. "The officers fired, striking and killing the individual."
Officials said a large group gathered at the scene and threw rocks and bricks at officers, leading the U.S. Marshals to call in Memphis police for crowd control. Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings said 25 officers were hurt in the neighborhood standoff, with at least six taken to a hospital.
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Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer identified the fugitive who was killed, but the man was not named by authorities.
"Every life lost should matter...every single one," Sawyer tweeted. "How many times will this be OK? It cannot continue to be."
"Don't judge Frayser without asking a community how it feels to mourn their youth over and over again. What do people do with their pain and trauma when it gets to be too much, when a city has ignored them, when their loss is too great and they can no longer yell at the sky?" Sawyer wrote in another post.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said officers showed "incredible restraint," and that vandals torn down a concrete wall outside a business and broke windows at a fire station.
"Let me be clear -- the aggression shown towards our officers and deputies tonight was unwarranted," Strickland said.
The TBI said it will investigate the shooting and turn over the findings to the Shelby County District Attorney General's office.
