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A Prince William County, Virginia, officer shot and killed a man who police say approached the officer with a knife and refused to drop it.
It happened just after 5 a.m. Thursday near the Department of Fire & Rescue Station 26 and the Central District Police Station on Davis Ford Road in Woodbridge.
An officer was finishing up a shift when there came a report about a man in the rear parking lot of the fire station, according to a Prince William County police news release.
Police said the man approached the officer while waving the knife in his hand. The officer ordered him to drop the knife but the man didn’t listen to those commands and kept moving closer.
That’s when the officer fired a weapon and struck the man in the upper body, the news release said. Other officers arrived and fire department personnel rendered first aid. The man, later identified as 58-year-old Michael David Burke, was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
Police Chief Peter Newsham has requested an investigation into the shooting. The officer who shot the man has been placed on administrative leave, per policy.
Newsham said the officer involved was a two-year veteran, and the deceased was a man in his 50s, WTOP’s Neal Augenstein reported from the scene. Investigators are still trying to determine why the man drove to the fire station. A knife was recovered from the scene.
Police did not identify the officer and the identity of the man who was shot has not been released.
Below is a map of where the shooting took place.
WTOP’s Abigail Constantino contributed to this report.