A sheriff's deputy and a second man were killed in a shootout after the deputy responded to a domestic violence complaint at the man's home, authorities said.
Deputy Roger Lynch, 51, and Joseph Calender were found dead Thursday night by a Kentucky State Police trooper who arrived at the home after the shootout.
Lynch, who is from nearby Tiline, was responding to a 911 call from Calender's daughter, 18-year-old Candice Calender, who reported around 11:30 p.m. CDT that her parents were fighting, state police said.
Calender, 48, was armed with a loaded semiautomatic assault rifle, a loaded handgun and three additional clips of ammunition when Lynch arrived, state police said. The two exchanged shots in the stairwell of the modest brick home in Ledbetter, about 10 miles southeast of Paducah.
It was unclear who fired first, said Trooper Mark Applin, a state police spokesman, but investigators determined Calender fired eight shots that hit Lynch four times: twice on his duty belt, once in his hand and another in his face.
Lynch fired one round that struck Calender in the chest.
Calender's wife, Chris, made a second 911 call from the home to tell police that both men had been shot.
The investigation is ongoing and autopsies were planned for both men Friday.
Lynch, who is married and has two children, had been a Livingston County deputy for five years.
"It's terrible something like this has to happen in a small community. It hurts a lot of people," said Livingston County Clerk Carroll Walker, who knew Lynch because they both grew up in the same small town. "He was a very good man, slow to anger. I can't understand it."
Candice Calender was wounded in the leg during the shootout, Applin said, though he was unsure if it was the result of being shot or grazed by flying fragments during the shootout. She was treated at a Paducah hospital.
Chris Calender was not injured, Applin said.
State police were unsure if officers had come to the house before on domestic violence complaints, but Applin said such calls are often dangerous.
"It's probably the most dangerous call a police officer could even go on," he said. "You're basically going into an environment that the other person knows better than you do."
The double shooting came two days after a shootout in Metcalfe County in southern Kentucky that left three police officers wounded, a suspect dead and the suspect's father wounded. The three officers were treated and released from a Louisville hospital.