One officer killed, another hurt in standoff; gunman also dead

Saturday, June 19th 2004, 9:34 am

By: News On 6

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas (AP) _ Two days after telling his parents that they would never see him again, a 20-year Navy veteran died after he killed one police officer and wounded another in a shootout.

The officers, Sgt. Gregory Hunter and Bruce Seix, had gone to a Wal-Mart parking lot Friday to check on a van that had been running all night.

Hunter, 54, went to the front of the vehicle and Seix to the side, said Grand Prairie detective John Brimmer. Timothy Joe Irwin, 42, shot Hunter at least twice through the front windshield. Seix was shot but returned fire.

Seix, 44, was hospitalized in critical condition after his lung and liver were pierced by bullet fragments, but he was ``conscious and talking'' Friday afternoon and was expected to recover, Brimmer said.

The shooting led to a six-hour standoff. SWAT negotiators spoke on a loud speaker in English and Spanish, telling Irwin to call them or come out, but he never responded. Brimmer said Irwin apparently used his cell phone at some point to call his girlfriend.

When authorities entered the van about an hour after firing several flash-bang grenades and tear gas inside, they found Irwin dead.

For more than six hours, 150 Wal-Mart shoppers and 60 employees were locked inside the store as a safety precaution. They sat in patio chairs, ate snacks and watched developments on televisions in the electronics department.

About 30 customers who had parked behind the store were escorted out a back door about noon, but the others stayed inside until the standoff ended.

John Jacobs, the manager of a Payless ShoeSource near the Wal-Mart, heard three pops, then another volley of pops.

``When I heard whistling, I knew rounds were coming in our direction. ... I hit the ground and I called the cops,'' said Jacobs, who was locked alone in the store during part of the standoff.

Hunter became the Grand Prairie Police Department's first black officer when he was hired in 1973. He left in 1981 for a security guard job, then returned to the force in 1983 and became a sergeant five years ago. He is survived by his wife, Denise, and four children.

Irwin, who lived in Grand Prairie, received a medical discharge three years ago. He was considered 70 percent disabled, Brimmer said.

But the detective said he did not know the nature of Irwin's service-related injury or what he had been doing since leaving the Navy.

``Obviously, whatever was going on in his life, he was having problems,'' Brimmer said.