Suspect in killing of 3 Pennsylvania officers was a 24-year-old being sought on stalking charges

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NORTH CODORUS, Pa. (AP) — The gunman who killed three officers and wounded two more in southern Pennsylvania before he was killed by police was a 24-year-old being sought on stalking charges, according to court documents and law enforcement.

The violence erupted in rural York County on Wednesday as officers sought Matthew James Ruth, who was also charged with trespassing, loitering and prowling at night in a domestic-related investigation that began a day earlier, court documents show.

Details on the domestic situation that led police to the farm were expected to emerge Thursday. The two injured officers remained in stable condition in the hospital.

A few doors down and across the street from Ruth’s home outside Hanover, neighbor Rose Miller said investigators arrived in two waves Wednesday, first around noon and again at about 5 p.m.

Miller said she didn’t know Ruth well but remembered him selling for fundraisers for the Boy Scouts. She said police removed items in bags from the house before leaving after midnight. No one answered the door at the Ruth home Thursday.

A law enforcement official who confirmed that Ruth was the shooting suspect spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Families of the officers in York County, and the community at large in the rolling farmland of southern Pennsylvania, were left to grieve and search for answers a day later.

“We need to do better as a society,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said. “We need to help the people who think that picking up a gun, picking up a weapon is the answer to resolving disputes.”

Wednesday was one of the state’s deadliest days for law enforcement this century, matching the toll from a day in 2009 when three officers were ambushed by a domestic violence suspect sporting a bulletproof vest.

As news of the tragedy spread, community members held American flags and saluted as police and emergency vehicles formed a procession to the coroner’s office. Police departments across the region mourned their colleagues on social media, while people left flowers at the headquarters of the Northern York Regional Police Department.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi called violence against police “a scourge on our society.”

The confrontation unfolded on a rural road in south-central Pennsylvania, not far from Maryland. Neighbor Dirk Anderson heard “quite a few” shots from his home across the street and wondered what was happening. Then he saw a helicopter and police arrive.

Some 30 police vehicles blocked off roads bordered by a barn, a goat farm and soybean and corn fields. The area, North Codorus Township, sits about 115 miles (185 km) west of Philadelphia.

Another officer was killed in York County in February, when a man armed with a pistol and zip ties entered a hospital’s intensive care unit and took staff members hostage before a shootout that left both the man and an officer dead.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press reporters Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael Casey in Boston and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed to this report.