Officer shot dead at South Carolina mall

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A South Carolina police officer was fatally shot at a mall on Wednesday after a struggle with a knife-wielding gunman, a law enforcement official said.

Greg Alia of the Forest Acres Police Department responded with two other officers to a call about a suspicious person, Police Chief Gene Sealy told reporters.

The suspect, identified as Jarvis Hall, ran from the officers into Richland Mall in Columbia, South Carolina, Sealy said. Alia caught up with him and was shot during an struggle.

Hall, who was armed with a handgun and knife, was taken into custody, the police chief said.

Alia, 32, was a seven-year veteran of the police department in Forest Acres, a suburb of Columbia, Sealy told reporters.

He was married and the father of a newborn baby, the police chief said.

"He was a role model for our new police officers," Sealy said, noting the community's deep grief.

The county sheriff's department and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division are assisting the police department with the investigation, he said.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Additional reporting by Mike Cooper and Letitia Stein; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott and Mohammad Zargham)