A suspect in a domestic abuse case who was being treated at St. Cloud Hospital in Minnesota grabbed a gun from a sheriff’s deputy in his treatment room and shot and killed the officer, reports the Associated Press.

The gunman was subsequently subdued by hospital security personnel using a stun gun. The suspect became unresponsive while in custody and later died despite the hospital’s efforts to revive him.

The superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension identified the deputy as Steven Martin Sandberg, a 60-year-old investigator with the sheriff’s office, and the shooter as 50-year-old Danny Leroy Hammond.

Evans and hospital vice president Kurt Otto declined to say why Hammond was being treated at the hospital in St. Cloud, which is about 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis. Otto said the hospital had asked the sheriff’s office to send deputies to monitor Hammond because of the “seriousness” of the domestic incident, which happened sometime earlier in the week. They would not say how long Hammond had been in the hospital except that it was more than a day.

The AP reports Hammond had prior felony convictions for burglary, terroristic threats, and escape from custody dating back to 1989.

The St. Cloud Times reports Hammond rose from his hospital bed around 6:15 a.m. EST and “initiated a struggle” with Sandberg, managing to wrestle his gun away. Hammond was not under arrest at the time and therefore had not been handcuffed or restrained in the hospital.

One of the officers who helped subdue Hammond after the fatal shooting had just arrived at the hospital to relieve Sandberg.

[AP] [SC Times]