Utah shooting suspect had stress disorder

OGDEN, Utah -- Search warrant in hand, a team of officers in bulletproof vests rapped on the door, identifying themselves as police. When no one responded, authorities say, the officers burst inside.

Then gunfire erupted.

When it was over Wednesday night, a seven-year veteran officer was dead and five of his colleagues were wounded, some critically. The suspect, an Army veteran whose estranged father said suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have been self-medicating with marijuana, was injured.

Investigators were trying to determine how the raid, part of a drug investigation, could have gone so terribly wrong.

Among the questions authorities will try to answer was whether the officers, in the chaotic moments upon entering the house, may have inadvertently fired on each other.

Police said the warrant was based on information about possible drug activity, but would not say what officers were specifically looking for in Matthew David Stewart's home.

Stewart, 37, was in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

Court records for him show only a 2005 conviction for a class B misdemeanor traffic violation -- operating a vehicle without insurance. A judge found him guilty and he was fined $350.

Stewart served in the Army from July 1994 to December 1998, spending a year based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and nearly three years stationed in Germany, Army records show. He held a post as a communications equipment specialist.

His father, Michael Stewart, said his son works a night shift at a Walmart and may have been sleeping when police arrived.

"When they kicked in the door, he probably felt threatened," said Stewart, who has been estranged from his son, but keeps track of him through his two other sons.

The Ogden officer killed, Jared Francom, 30, leaves behind two daughters, ages 3 and 5, and his wife of seven years, Erin.