On the evening of April 14, 2024, a routine traffic stop in Syracuse led to a deadly ambush that killed two law enforcement officers. Syracuse Police Officer Michael E. Jensen, 29, was struck by a fatal chest wound after the stop escalated when the suspect fled and officers traced the plate to a home on Darien Drive in Liverpool. Christopher Murphy, 33, opened fire from the house with an illegally modified AR-15, also killing Onondaga County Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Hoosock in a neighboring yard before continuing to fire from the front of his residence.

Officer Jensen, a member of the Syracuse Police Department for over two years, was reported to have returned fire despite his mortal wound, emptying an 18-round magazine. Responding officers shot and killed Murphy during the brief, two-minute exchange. An investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office later found the officers’ use of deadly force justified; toxicology reported alcohol and cocaine in Murphy’s system and investigators recovered racist and pro-Nazi images on his phone. Murphy’s exact motive for the ambush remains unclear.

Did anyone in the Liverpool or Syracuse area witness the incident or see the vehicle before the stop?