Georgia officer killed, second wounded in shooting near university

A young Georgia police officer was shot and killed and a second critically injured while responding to a report of a domestic dispute on Wednesday near a university campus in the southwestern part of the state, officials said.

Officers Ryan Smarr and Jodi Smith were shot as they responded to a 911 call for help in the city of Americus, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, where Georgia Southwestern State University is located, officials said.

The nearby campus was immediately put on lockdown, as officers searched for Minguel Lembrick, 32, the man believed to be the shooter, said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles.

Smarr, a 25-year-old recent hire at the Americus Police Department, died in the attack. Smith, an officer with the campus police whose age was not released, is in critical condition, said Americus police spokeswoman Phyllis Whitley-Banks.

Both were taken to a hospital in nearby Macon.

The university used Twitter to ask students to shelter in place, telling them they could leave after police had searched the dormitories in the hunt for Lembrick.

Officials asked students who were not planning to leave the area to stay in their dorms, however, and promised to send in pizza.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Bernard Orr, G Crosse)