Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

Video Credit:CEN

This is the moment an off-duty cop falls to the floor after apparently being shot during a jewellery shop heist before his attacker steals his gun in the chaos.

The shocking incident occurred in a shopping centre on Avenida Antonio Carlos Magalhaes in the city of Salvador in the eastern Brazilian state of Bahia and was recorded by CCTV cameras.

In the video, a military police officer named in reports as Tiago Ribeiro Simoes, can be seen walking towards a jewellery shop which was reportedly being robbed.

The cop encounters one of the thugs robbing the shop and tries to usher him away before the criminal goes to pull out his gun.

Santos pulls out his own weapon but is shot to the floor by one of the gang inside the shop who cannot be seen.

A thug then leaves the shop and appears to open fire on the cop from point-blank range before stealing his gun and running away. Local media report the cop died at the scene and his pistol was stolen.

The Secretary of Public Security for Bahia said the officer was not working at the time but had been alerted to the robbery in the jewellery shop by people in the shopping centre.

Local police Colonel Xavier Filho told reporters: “He was careful, he just did not imagine that there was another (suspect) inside the jeweller’s who shot and put our friend, our brother, on the floor, dead. He had his life taken from him.”

The criminals, the exact number of which were involved has not been reported, are said to have fled the scene in the car.

A man named in reports as Washington has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the robbery. He was reportedly identified from the CCTV footage and by witnesses. It is unclear if he has been charged.

No other arrests had been reported at the time of writing.

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