Officer Hurt In Newark Shootout

A New Jersey police officer has been wounded in a shootout, and another person has been killed.

Police say a preliminary investigation shows there was an exchange of gunfire between an Essex County sheriff's officer and an unidentified male suspect late Sunday night in Newark, a gritty city often scarred by violence.

They say the officer has been hospitalized in critical but stable condition while the suspect was mortally wounded.

The city of about 280,000 residents is safer than it was a few years ago but still is periodically convulsed by shocking violence, like the execution-style slayings of three college-bound students in the summer of 2007.