Hospital discharges officer injured in shooting
Sandpoint Police officers joined a caravan of law enforcement vehicles which returned Officer Eric Clark to Sandpoint on Tuesday afternoon. KEITH KINNAIRD/Hagadone News Network
(Photo by MARY MALONE) A crowd outside the Bonner County Prosecutor’s Office cheered as a procession of law enforcement made their way into town, escorting Sandpoint Police Officer Eric Clark home after undergoing surgery at Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene. Clark and fellow Officer Michael Hutter were injured during a shooting early Monday morning.
(Photo by KEITH KINNAIRD) Sandpoint Police Officer Eric Clark is driven across the U.S. Highway 95 Long Bridge in a Lexus sport utility vehicle on Tuesday.
(LOREN BENOIT/Press) Fellow law enforcement officers show their support for Sandpoint Police officer Eric Clark Tuesday afternoon at Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene. Clark was shot in the neck and left hand during a suspect involved shooting early Monday morning in Sandpoint. Fellow Officer Michael Hutter, who also responded to the scene, was shot in the leg and chest. He was treated at Bonner General Hospital Monday morning and released.
LOREN BENOIT/Press Sandpoint Police officer Eric Clark shakes the hand of a fellow officer Tuesday afternoon at Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene. Clark was shot in the neck and left hand during a suspect-involved shooting early Monday morning. Michael Hutter, a fellow officer, was also injured. He was treated and released Monday morning at Bonner General Health.
SANDPOINT — A Sandpoint Police officer who was shot in the neck in the line of duty early Monday morning was returned to Sandpoint Tuesday amid a caravan of law enforcement vehicles.
Officer Eric Clark was discharged from Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene following two surgeries. A phalanx of vehicles from Sandpoint Police, Ponderay Police, Idaho State Police, the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office and Selkirk Fire Rescue & EMS escorted his return to Sandpoint.
Clark was wounded when a Sandpoint man allegedly opened fire on him and officer Mike Hutter when they responded to his residence on Ridley Village Road for an unspecified call for service. Officer Mike Hutter was shot in the leg and chest during the incident and was released from Bonner General Health on Monday.
City officials contend officers were fired upon by Brandon Theodore Kuhlman without provocation, prompting officers to return fire. Kuhlman, 28, was found dead following the confrontation, although the exact circumstances surrounding his death have not been released by authorities. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday.
No new information about the incident was released by the city or the North Idaho Critical Incident Task Force, a consortium of law enforcement agencies in the Panhandle which investigates officer-involved shootings from other jurisdictions in order to sidestep the appearance of a conflict of interest.