Talvin DeMachio in Hostage Situa

A Dallas policeman shot in the thigh early Wednesday while responding to a hostage situation was in good spirits after surgery, a police spokeswoman said.
Officer Jeremy Borchardt, 29, lost a lot of blood after being shot in the leg. He was transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital, police said.
Officer Borchardt, a seven-year veteran of the force who had been scheduled to receive a promotion to senior corporal today, was in stable condition late Wednesday afternoon. His wife was at his side.
Dallas police Chief David Kunkle later conferred Borchardt's promotion at an impromptu hospital ceremony.
“He’s obviously in a lot of pain. All seems to be well,” Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther said. “He’s glad to be alive.”
Ronald Robinson, 37, of Dallas, is accused of shooting Officer Borchardt and holding a woman hostage in a Radisson hotel room. He later died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Police were negotiating for several hours with the gunman, who had been beating the 33-year-old woman. She emerged from the room sometime after 7 a.m. and told officers that the suspect was dead, police Lt. Rick Watson said.
The female hostage was in stable condition at Parkland with a gunshot wound to the leg and another superficial wound in the back, Cpl. Crowther said. The woman’s relationship to the suspect was not immediately clear.
Lt. Rick Watson said the situation began unfolding about 4:14 a.m., when Dallas Fire-Rescue was called to a room on the fourth floor of the hotel in the 1200 block of West Mockingbird Lane near Stemmons Freeway. When firefighters arrived, a woman was yelling, but a man refused to let them in the room, Lt. Watson said.
Dallas Fire-Rescue called for Dallas police. The first officer to arrive was Gerald Runnels, who heard what sounded like a woman being beaten.
“I tried to talk to the suspect through the door and he just wasn’t cooperating with me at all. That’s when I called for cover and a supervisor,” Officer Runnels said, adding that he was alone at the door for several minutes.
1200 block of W. Mockingbird Lane, Dallas
“I was trying to talk him down, calm him down. I could hear him hitting the lady. I could hear the lady screaming and hollering for help, that kind of thing,” Officer Runnels told reporters outside Parkland’s emergency room. “That’s when I got on the radio and said, ‘Step it up. I’ve got a real problem here.’”
Five officers, including Officer Borchardt and Senior Cpl. Roger Rudloff, arrived.
Cpl. Rudloff said they could hear the woman being attacked “pretty violently.”
“If somebody’s in a room getting beat up, I mean, that’s our job to go in and get them,” he said.
Officers asked for a manager to give them a master key. As Officer Borchardt stood to the side of the door and attempted to unlock it, the suspect shot several times through the wall, hitting the officer in the leg, police said.
Officer Runnels and Cpl. Rudloff dragged the officer, bleeding profusely from a large bullet wound, down the hall, into the elevator and through the lobby to a waiting ambulance.
“I’m looking at this officer who I work with every day in the eyes who got shot and I’m thinking, ‘I need to get him to the hospital to get him help,’” Officer Runnels said.
Medics rushed Officer Borchardt to nearby Parkland.
"He was joking around as we went into the O.R.," Cpl. Rudloff said. "He was concerned about his family and his three kids."
Police asked all guests in floors above the fourth in the 13-story hotel to remain in their rooms while the negotiations continued with the gunman. A hotel restaurant was evacuated.
Otho Rogers and his wife, of Melrose, N.M., were staying in the room across the hall. Mr. Rogers opened the door and a SWAT officer with a rifle told him to get back inside.
“I just heard the police screaming back and forth. They kept yelling at him to get down,” Mr. Rogers said.
Eventually, all guests from the fourth floor were escorted to the hotel ballroom, he said.
Christopher Jossell of Chicago opened his door and saw a trail of blood. He returned to his room and watched the events unfold on TV. He said he was worried about the officer.
“You see all this blood and you don’t know what to think,” he said. “Whatever is going on, somebody is hurt.”
John Wilson of Lubbock was lodging on a different floor when he sensed that something was amiss. When he called the front desk, he was told there was a hostage situation. So he turned on the television and waited, missing his return flight from Love Field.
“I just stayed in my room until they said I could come out,” he said.
The Police Department was working with the American Red Cross to launch an emergency blood drive Wednesday in his honor.
Chief Kunkle said responding to cases of domestic violence is a fairly routine part of an officer’s job.
“This is one of those situations that officers can do very little to provide for their own safety. Because as I said, my understanding is the officer was shot even before they got to the doorway,” he said. “There was virtually nothing that can be done to keep those kind of incidents from happening.”