Sioux City police say the man who shot a police officer last Friday and then turned the gun on himself is now “clinically dead,” but he’s being kept alive temporarily by machines. Sioux City Police Chief Doug Young says they learned early Thursday of 27-year-old Noah Ironshell’s condition. Ironshell is at the the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Young says Ironshell’s body will be sent back to Iowa for an autopsy at the state crime lab in Ankeny. Police stated that while Ironshell’s brain had stopped functioning, his body was being kept alive for organ donations. Chief Young says Ironshell has been in a coma and investigators have not been able to speak with him at the hospital.
Young says Ironshell shot officer Jill Ohm in the face last Friday as she answered a disturbance call. The chief says Ironshell then shot himself in the head as police officers searched a nearby vacant house where he was hiding. Young says Ohm remains hospitalized at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City in stable condition.
By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City
(This story was updated to reflect the subject is “clinically dead.” That was not reported by police in the initial story)