UPDATE1 -- Florida police officer shot dead, suspect arrested

USPA News - A Florida police officer was killed early Sunday morning in a shooting near the city of Tampa, local authorities said, but details were not immediately available. It comes less than a day after two police officers were ambushed and murdered in New York.

The shooting happened at about 3 a.m. local time on Grand Boulevard in the city of Tarpon Springs, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Tampa. "An officer, a male officer, is deceased. I can tell you that we have a suspect in custody, also a male," said Cecilia Barreda, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff`s Office. Authorities did not immediately provide details about the circumstances under which the shooting occurred, and the identities of both the officer and the suspect were being withheld. "We`ve received an outpouring of support from various law enforcement agencies across this area, as well as from outside of here, to provide any assistance or support in this very tragic situation," the spokeswoman said. "The circumstances under which this occurred is not yet being released. He was on duty, but that is all that we have at the moment." Sunday`s shooting marks the first fallen officer for the Tarpon Springs Police Department since November 1969, when Officer Lanny Rhea Langford died in a traffic accident while on duty. Decades earlier, in August 1926, Patrolman Everett E. Blewfield was shot and killed by a group of thieves.