Deputy shot, wounded on Tucson's southwest side

A Pima County Sheriff’s Department deputy was shot and wounded in an “ambush” Tuesday morning while answering a domestic violence call on Tucson’s southwest side, authorities said. 

One suspect was taken into custody but the search for a second — "the suspect who fired on the deputy" — continued into the night. The Sheriff's Department urges anyone with information about the incident to call 9-1-1 or 88-CRIME.

Deputies had gone to the 5000 block of West Jeffrey Road, near South Mark Road, shortly after 10 a.m. and saw the suspects' vehicle driving in the area. Seeing the deputies, the two men implicated in the shooting tried to get away, colliding with another vehicle near Jeffrey and Camino de Oeste, a Sheriff's Department spokesman, Deputy Keith Bee, said in a news release late Tuesday.

The two got out of their vehicle and were chased by deputies on foot. That's when a deputy was shot, suffering injuries described as non-life-threatening. A department spokesman, Deputy Adam Schoonover, said he could not say whether gunfire was exchanged because it's still an active part of the investigation. 

Deputies and officers from other law enforcement agencies immediately swarmed the area, focusing much of the response around the 4500 block of West Jeffrey, a rural neighborhood with several mobile homes on dirt roads surrounded by open desert.

The situation remained fluid late Tuesday afternoon, with Sheriff Chris Nanos calling it a “very active and hot scene” during a news conference about 3 p.m. outside of Banner University Medical Center, where the wounded deputy, whose name was not released, was being treated.

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Nanos provided no details on why he labeled the shooting an “ambush.” At some point, one of the two men was taken into custody, he said. 

The search for the second man continued, including a door-to-door search. Nanos couldn’t specify how long the area would be on lockdown and said several streets around the shooting area remained closed late Tuesday afternoon for the intensive search.

The second man had not been found as of an update the Sheriff's Department provided shortly after 7 p.m. 

When asked earlier by reporters which resources were being used to help track down the fugitive, Nanos replied, “everything.”

A police chopper circled the area for much of the afternoon as deputies could be seen searching neighborhood streets, some armed with rifles.

Officers from several agencies including police officers from Tucson, Marana and the Pascua Yaqui Police Department remained in the area for hours.