Auburn MA officer dead after traffic stop shooting

After the shooting, the officer was transported to UMass Memorial Medical Center. The body was brought to the medical examiner’s office in Boston around 9:30 Sunday morning.

More than a dozen law enforcement officials stood outside the Auburn police department and saluted a procession of police vehicles, with flashing lights and sirens. The vehicles, about 30 in total, hailed from various police including Auburn, Worcester, Millbury, and State Police units.

Outside the Auburn police station, the American flag had been lowered to half-mast. Bouquets of flowers and a smaller American flag were heaped in front of a stone monument commemorating law enforcement officers who had given their lives in the course of duty.

Just before 7 a.m., officers at the scene of the shooting on Rochdale Street, a quiet side street that runs along Kinnear Brook, were seen using a dog to search and examining a gray truck parked nearby.

“I heard rapid fire gunshots and and somebody yell, ‘Get down!’” said Phil Berthiaume, who lives in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred. “One police car after another… It was like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, rapid fire, very loud.”

Throughout the state, police and fire departments shared messages of condolences on Facebook and Twitter. The posts stretched from Billerica to Cambridge to Seekonk, and included some campus police departments.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with The Auburn Police family through this difficult time. May justice be swift and harsh,” the Seekonk police department tweeted.

In a photograph posted by the Wellesley Police Department, officers lined an overpass to salute the slain officer’s body as it was escorted to the medical examiner’s officers.