Orlando police officer shot and killed; deputy dies in crash during manhunt for suspect

ORLANDO, Fla. (TNS) — Two Orlando-area law enforcement officers were killed Monday morning, one shot by a murder suspect who managed to get away and a second killed in a crash while officers and deputies scrambled to find him.

The first victim was an Orlando police officer, Master Sgt. Debra Clayton, who was shot and killed on Princeton Street as she tried to detain the suspect.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina called Clayton, a mother of two, a hero.

Killed a short time later was an Orange County motorcycle deputy who was part of the effort to capture the suspect, said Sheriff Jerry Demings.

“We’re sad on this day for many reasons,” Demings said at a morning news conference at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Both officers were taken there and pronounced dead there.

Demings did not release the name of the deputy, saying the agency was still trying to notify relatives.

Both agencies identified the shooter as Markeith Loyd, 43, a man who officers and deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office tried to corner and arrest earlier Monday.

When Clayton did, she was shot, Mina said.

The Sheriff’s Office reported that Loyd had shot at a Sheriff’s Office captain in an unmarked SUV and missed.

Both agencies described Loyd as armed and dangerous, and Demings asked that anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact law enforcement immediately.

Deputies had been on the lookout for Lloyd for weeks because of a murder warrant: He’s accused of murdering his pregnant 24-year-old girlfriend, Sade Dixon, in December.

The Sheriff’s Office reported that when he saw the deputy Monday morning near North Lane and Pine Hills Drive, he opened fire. That gunfire hit the deputy’s SUV twice but not the deputy.