TWO DELAWARE OFFICERS STRUCK BY TRUCK

A New Castle County probation and parole officer was seriously injured Wednesday night after a wanted man hit him and another officer with his vehicle, police said. State police Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh said two probation and parole officers were eating in Seasons Pizza at 903 N. Du Pont Highway shortly before 8 p.m. when the man came inside.

Whitmarsh said the officers recognized the suspect as wanted by authorities.

"He left," Whitmarsh said. "The officers, recognizing him, walked outside and confronted him." The man, Jeffrey Krahn, 24, would not get out of his vehicle and instead drove it in their direction and hit both of the officers with his truck, Whitmarsh said.

Both officers, Whitmarsh said, fired shots at the vehicle and were hit. One was seriously injured when his head hit the pavement. "He has a major head injury," Whitmarsh said from the scene Wednesday night. The officer was taken to Christiana Hospital, where he was in serious but stable condition.

It was not known whether Krahn, whose last known address was in Glasgow, or his vehicle was hit by gunshots. He drove south on Du Pont Highway.

Krahn, Whitmarsh said, has connections to Wilmington and Elkton, Md. He was wanted for violation of probation and by New Castle County police for a weapons charge. Krahn had four other active warrants, Whitmarsh said.

"There were about six shell casings next to the pull-up window," said Sean Fierro, 18, of New Castle. Fierro and his friends were driving past the restaurant when they saw the commotion. They pulled over and walked up to the scene before police got there. "When we first drove by him, he was laying face down, but when we walked up there, he was on his back. There were two people around him," Fierro said.

Rachel Gray said she also saw what happened. "I saw the probation officer fall. I heard the shots," said Gray, who ran to the officer's side. "I held his head up for him." Troy McPherson and his wife were waiting at a red light on Du Pont Highway at the time. "When the light changed, I heard pow, pow, pow, then I saw a red pickup truck getting away," McPherson said. "There was a guy on the front of the truck trying to stop it, but he fell.

The truck slung him off. The pickup went all around the parking lot, came back out on the street and made a right. It happened so fast, there was smoke coming from his tires," McPherson said. McPherson and other onlookers stood in the parking lot, where tire marks were burned into the pavement.