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Blue Alert News - National System
Saturday September 3rd, 2011 :: 05:59 p.m. EDT

Advisory

Shot Auburndale, FL. police officer remains in critical but stable condition

AUBURNDALE -- A police officer remains in critical condition after she was shot in Auburndale late Friday night.

Sheriff Grady Judd said law enforcement responded to a call about a domestic disturbance at a home in the Diamond Ridge subdivision shortly after 10 p.m.

Officer Stacy Booth, 26, was walking up to the house when the suspect, Michael Wayne Lester, fired a shotgun blast through the door, Judd said.

A child had called to report that her parents were fighting, but a short while later, Judd said the child's mother called to tell police not to come to the home, because she had taken her daughter and was leaving.

However, Judd said police went to the home anyway to check on the situation.

Booth was shot in the abdomen and the arm. She made it to a nearby home, where she was able to radio for backup.

Deputies, officers and a SWAT team arrived at the scene and set up a perimeter around the house. The SWAT team fired tear gas into the home, then sent a robot inside the home and found Lester, who was unconscious.

Booth was airlifted to Lakeland Regional Medical Center. At 3:30 pm., APD spokesman Thrashey Tucker said Booth remains in critical but stable condition.

Lester was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for treatment related to exposure to the gas. Lester was moved to the Polk County Jail on Saturday morning.

"He had one last chance to make a bad decision,'' Judd said of Lester. "But, he made the right decision for his life and he is in custody. We don't decide whether to use deadly force. The suspect decides whether we use deadly force.''

Lester will be arraigned in court at 9 a.m. Sunday.

According to the Polk Co. Sheriff's Office, Booth was a telecommunicator with the department from 2006 to 2007. She left the department in good standing and became an APD officer in 2010.

Address/Location
Blue Alert News - National System
1532 US Highway 41 Byp S
Venice, FL 34293

Contact
Emergency: 9-1-1
Non-emergencies: 855-456-2210

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