A gunfire encounter that left a suspect dead and a veteran police officer injured went unrecorded Sunday morning due to ongoing problems with the Meridian Police Department’s cameras.

Around 1:45 a.m. Sunday, an unidentified officer responded to a be-on-the-lookout report of an armed suspect driving a truck with a female passenger. Upon finding the truck on the 3600 block of Poplar Springs Drive, the suspect exited the car with a handgun and started firing at the officer, who returned fire and killed the suspect.

The officer was struck by two shots to the chest and another bullet grazed his leg and arm, police said. His bulletproof vest was credited for protecting him from further injury.

The exchange was not captured on video because the officer didn’t have a body camera, police said during a noon Monday news conference.

The officer, a shift supervisor, didn’t have a body camera because the department had experienced problems with some of its cameras, Capt. John Griffith said.

“He’d been without a camera for one to two months,” Griffith said.

The department had problems with cameras dating back six months and it was in the process of switching to a new system, Griffith said. With a finite number of functioning cameras, incoming classes of new officers depleted the number of working cameras.

Problems included broken power buttons and lithium batteries that swelled if left too long on the charger, cracking the camera, Griffith said.

Dash camera footage from the vehicle wouldn’t be useful because of the position of the car, Griffith said, which was at a 90-degree angle to the suspect’s truck and parked a few feet back.

The officer was the only officer on the scene at the time of the shooting, with backup arriving just minutes later, police said.

“We’re actually set up to where our back up is relatively close but the dynamics move so fast that they didn’t have time to get there,” Griffith said.

Griffith said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations, which investigates all officer-involved shootings in the state, will release information about the identities of the officer and man involved.

Warren Strain, the spokesman for the MBI, said Monday that the organization had no comment on the case. He didn’t release any details on Monday.

Griffith said the officer, who has 20-23 years of experience, hit the driver of the truck a number of times, but added that an autopsy would confirm the specific number.

The officer will be on paid administrative leave while MBI investigates, following the policy of the Meridian Police Department and allowing the officer to recover with his family.

“(We) would like to express our appreciation for the outpouring of support demonstrated to us by the citizens and community we protect and serve,” Griffith said Monday, reading from a statement released Sunday. “We also remind our citizens that the driver has family and friends in our community that also need our support.”

Meridian Police Chief Benny Dubose said Sunday the woman and her boyfriend were riding with the suspect until an argument broke out between the two men. The suspect reportedly pulled a gun and told the male passenger to exit the vehicle while on Highway 39. The male passenger then called police.

According to an MPD news release on Monday, a witness lived across the street from the shooting and walked outside after hearing gunshots.

“The witness stated that he saw the officer standing near the truck, giving command to the female to exit the vehicle,” the statement said. “The female witness that was in the vehicle at the time of the incident… (said) that the driver had made statements while he had them both in the vehicle that if he was stopped by a cop he was going to shoot him.”

The female passenger was not injured in the incident.

The suspect didn’t live in the area of the shooting, according to Griffith.

Griffith said the driver didn’t have a connection to the male and female passengers.

In 2017, there have been at least two officer-involved shootings in the Lauderdale County area. The most recent occurred in August and involved a sheriff’s deputy at a home on Fred Haguewood Road in the county.

According to Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie, Maj. John Calhoun fatally shot Jeremy Douglas Gabrial, 31, during a disturbance on Aug. 4.

The day of the incident, Sollie said Gabrial was “raising the gun in a threatening manner,” which prompted Calhoun to fire his weapon “to protect himself.”

Cobler said Gabrial was taken to Anderson Regional Medical Center, where he later died from gunshot wounds to the neck and chest.

Sollie said a body cam and a dash cam were active when the incident occurred. Footage of the incident were given to the MBI, along with the E-911 call and a log of past incidents at the residence.

Calhoun was placed on administrative leave following the incident, but he has since been reinstated.