A Louisville police officer shot in the back Tuesday night is out of surgery and listed in fair condition at University Hospital, and the man who police say fired the shot is being held at Metro Corrections.
Danta DeWayne Watts Jr., 19, is charged with two counts of criminal attempted murder of a police officer.
According to Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert White, two plainclothes officers were responding to a report of a man with a gun walking north on 33rd Street near Bank Street around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday.
The officers tried to stop the man, but before they could get out of their car, police said, Watts opened fire, striking one of the officers in his back, near a kidney.
"When a police officer is shot, the person doesn't shoot the individual officer, he doesn't have a beef with the officer. He's shooting the uniform and what the officer represents," White said. "So that affects officers throughout the country."