Police Officer Succumbs to Gunshot Wound after a Routine Traffic Stop

K9 Officer Jordan Harris Sheldon, a 32-year-old member of the Mooresville Police Force in North Caroline, died after being shot during a routine traffic stop.

The incident took place on May 4 shortly after 10 p.m. not far from Highway 150. Sheldon stopped a vehicle on West Plaza Drive. The person in the car was Michael Aldana, a 28-year-old man who was “known to the department.”

Even though the details of the incident are still unclear, Aldana shot Sheldon and fled the scene. The suspect was tracked to a nearby apartment building but, when the police arrive, they found him dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

HE DIED OF HIS INJURIES

Sheldon was immediately transported to a health facility to receive treatment, but he did not survive. Police Chief Damon Williams revealed during a news conference that the department was “hurt,” “angry,” and that they were going through a “roller coaster of emotions."

Williams added that Sheldon’s family was “distraught” and that they were their family, too, and they wanted to take care of them. Mayor Miles Atkins also pointed out that the case was not just a number for them. “This is a real person.”

MORE INFORMATION OF THE INCIDENT

In a Facebook post, the Mooresville Police Department shared, they revealed that the investigation is still ongoing and that “many local and state law enforcement agencies” were assisting.

Sadly, Sheldon is not the only police officer killed in the US in 2019. As the Officer Down Memorial Page reported, which tracks police deaths, he was the 16th officer fatally shot.

JOHN RIVERA’S MURDER

One of them was John Rivera, a 23-year-old Chicago Police officer who died in March after two masked men randomly shot him in his parked car. The Chicago Police apprehended one of the murder suspects.

His death shocked everybody as Rivera was off duty at the time of the incident and spent only two years in the police force. The officer and his friends were reportedly sitting in their car when the unknown men lodged their attack and fled the scene afterward.

Rivera sustained fatal gunshot wounds to his chest, arm, and mouth and was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. One of his friends was also wheeled off to the hospital in a very dire situation while the two others, a police officer like Rivera and one of his female friends, remained unhurt.

In honor of Rivera’s demise, firefighters erected the American flag outside the Medical Examiner's Office, as a procession of police vehicles followed the ambulance carrying Rivera's body.