Davenport police officer shot

DAVENPORT - The Davenport police officer wounded after exchanging gunfire with a man Thursday afternoon is stable and 'doing well,” police Chief Paul Sikorski said Thursday evening.

Sikorski declined to name the officer or discuss the extent of his injuries.

Scott County Sheriff Tim Lane confirmed charges are pending against Brett Samuel Dennis Sr., 27, in connection with the shooting.

Dennis was booked into the Scott County Jail at 8:19 p.m. and is being held on outstanding unrelated warrants.

Another person taken into custody has not been named.

At 4:25 p.m., Davenport officers with the NETS unit, or Neighborhood Energized To Succeed, and patrol officers were working the area known as Five Points, or Division and Locust streets and Hickory Grove Road, where they were investigation an increase of crime in the area, Sikorski said.

The officers saw a couple of 'suspicious” men and tried to stop and talk with them in the 1600 block of West 17th Street, just east of Division Street. The two men ran into the side yard of a home, and one fired at the officer, who returned fire.

For several hours Thursday, officers talked to neighbors and searched yards, dumpsters and trash cans. An officer led a K-9 through yards and along the sidewalk.

Kimberly Smithe, owner of G & G Retailers Inc. on West 17th Street, said she heard the sirens and saw a squad car going down the alley and heard it screech to a halt.

While the incident was scary, it did not really make her feel unsafe in the neighborhood, she said.

'It can happen anywhere, it doesn't matter where you're at,” she said. 'It can happen anywhere.”

Sikorski said every police department in the Quad-City region, and some as far away as Muscatine had contacted him, asking if they could do anything to aid Davenport.

Despite the fact that overall crime in Davenport dropped by 9 percent last year, Sikorski said there are still challenges officers are facing, including gun violence.

'We handle a lot of shots-fired calls in the city, and we're doing everything we can with the officers we have,” he said.

The Scott County Sheriff's Department and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation are investigating the shooting while the Davenport Police Department will hold an internal investigation of its own, he added.