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Police say Nampa police officer shot, wounded

| December 18, 2010 8:00 PM

NAMPA (AP) - A southwest Idaho police officer shot in the head as he served a search warrant was alert and talking in a Boise hospital on Friday, authorities said.

The morning after the Thursday night shooting, Nampa Police Chief Bill Augsburger called the 28-year-old officer's survival a "Christmas miracle," the Idaho Press-Tribune reported.

The wounded officer, who police haven't identified, has been with the agency for three years. He was wounded in an exchange of gunfire as officers attempted to serve a felony warrant at an apartment. A few hours later police found the body of a man in the apartment, authorities said. He was identified Friday as 27-year-old Patrick E. Green.

At the news conference Friday morning, police said Green appeared to have died of a self-inflicted wound from a handgun. The Idaho Statesman reported that police had been looking for Green on a drug-related arrest warrant for a week.

Police entered the apartment near 4th and 12th streets about 6:40 p.m. Thursday and were fired on by someone inside a darkened room, and the Nampa police officer was hit.

Officers returned fire and heard more shots as they were leaving the apartment, but no other officers were injured, said Caldwell Police Chief Chris Allgood.

His agency is part of a task force leading the investigation.

After the shooting police surrounded the apartment, and at about 10:30 p.m. found Green inside after sending in a robot normally used by the bomb squad.

KTVB-TV reported that the officer was conscious and speaking as he was being transported to St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise.

In an earlier police shooting, Nampa Cpl. Allen Williamson was seriously wounded in 2005 during a traffic stop.

Mariano Perez Jr. is serving a life sentence in prison for the shooting.