Felled deputy survived by pregnant wife

KNOXBORO -- A 24-year-old sheriff's deputy, whose wife is pregnant with their second child, was fatally shot during a gun battle at the end of a six-hour standoff at a house in central New York, authorities said yesterday.

Deputy Kurt Wyman died after being rushed to a Utica hospital following the shootout around 2 a.m. yesterday inside a garage in the rural hamlet of Knoxboro, Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol said.

He said the four-year veteran was shot once with a shotgun by Christian Patterson, 40, as officers tried to take him into custody around 2 a.m.

The sheriff said three other officers returned fire and hit Patterson several times. He was in critical condition at the same hospital and will be charged with aggravated murder because the killing involved a police officer, authorities said.

Maciol said Wyman and Deputy Mark Chrysler arrived at Patterson's home around 8 p.m. Monday after his live-in girlfriend called 911 and reported he was threatening to kill her and himself. The sheriff said Shannon Secor fled to a neighbor's home and was unharmed.

Patterson held the deputies at bay while other law enforcement officers arrived and tried to get him to surrender. Maciol says the officers rushed Patterson six hours later when he indicated he was going to harm himself. Maciol said Wyman joined the sheriff's department in October 2007 and spent a year deployed in Iraq with a Marine Corps Reserve unit before returning to the police agency in 2009.

Survivors include his parents, a sister, his 18-month old son and his wife, Lauren, who is pregnant with their second child. A sheriff's department official said she went into labor after learning her husband had been shot. The sheriff said she had not delivered the baby by early afternoon.