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Report pending in fatal shooting

Police investigate East Kingsford confrontation

IRON MOUNTAIN — Authorities have yet to release any additional information on Monday’s fatal shooting of a 20-year-old Norway man by an Iron Mountain police officer in East Kingsford.

Michigan State Police on Friday were in the process of wrapping up their investigation, Iron Mountain Post Commander F/Lt. Paul Campbell said. He expected a report would be forwarded to the prosecutor’s office by the middle of next week.

In the meantime, Campbell declined to release the officer’s name or the extent of his injuries, or any additional information about the deceased suspect, previously identified as Riley Starnes, including his possible motive for the incident.

Iron Mountain Director of Police and Fire Services Ed Mattson previously had stated in a news release the incident started on a report Monday morning about a truck being driven recklessly near the BOSS Snowplow manufacturing plant east of U.S. 2 in north Iron Mountain.

The truck then was seen going onto the nearby Systems Control property, where police found it abandoned in the parking lot. Police confirmed a short time later the truck and a handgun had been stolen from a garage on the North Side earlier that morning, according to the news release.

Believing an armed suspect may have fled into the woods, police advised numerous businesses as well as Bay College West to secure their buildings by going into “lockdown.”

This happened on the first day of fall semester classes at the college, Bay College President Laura Coleman said. It was the first time either campus — Iron Mountain or Escanaba — ever had a lockdown, she said, adding it was a smooth process in which “everyone did exactly as they were supposed to do.”

Police later learned a passenger car had been stolen from the Systems Control parking lot before officers arrived, according to the news release.

About 10 minutes later, a call came into 911 that a man driving a car that matched the second stolen vehicle had attempted to rob a woman at gunpoint at an East Kingsford home in Breitung Township.

An Iron Mountain officer spotted the vehicle on Skidmore Drive and gave chase until the fleeing suspect crashed the vehicle on a private drive. The suspect and police officer then exchanged gunfire, with both being hit, the release stated.

When other law enforcement arrived within a minute, both the officer and suspect were taken to Dickinson County Memorial Hospital, where the suspect died. The officer was treated for a head wound and released, authorities said.

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