The veteran Arlington police officer shot while trying to serve warrants on the man suspected of killing his 6-year-old neighbor has been released from the hospital.
Detective Charles Lodatto was shot Tuesday morning at the Saginaw home of 17-year-old Tyler Holder.
Holder allegedly fired on members of a multiagency major crimes task force attempted to serve arrest and search warrants, seriously wounding Lodatto.
The bullet divided Lodatto's femoral artery and then lodged in his hip socket, doctors said last week.
Lodatto, a 20-year veteran of the Arlington Police Department, was taken to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.
Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson said last week that Lodatto had a "difficult road ahead" but that they are optimistic that he will fully recover from his injuries. On Monday, he tweeted about Lodatto's release from the hospital, saying that community support has been "overwhelming."
A hero's homecoming! Det. Lodatto is released from the hospital. Community support has been overwhelming! Thanks! pic.twitter.com/6wKMHjp975 — Will Johnson (@ArlingtonChief) July 29, 2013
Dr. William Witham, one of the treating trauma surgeons at the hospital, said a field tourniquet applied immediately after the shooting stopped the bleeding and stabilized Lodatto until he could have surgery at the hospital.
The officers, part of a major crimes task force that includes the FBI and several police departments, were investigating the death of Alanna Gallagher, whose naked, bound body was found wrapped in a tarp on a residential street about a mile away from her home July 1 by two teenagers.
The house where the shooting occurred is two doors down from the home where Gallagher lived with her family.
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Holder, who was shot by another officer after opening fire on the task force, is charged with attempted capital murder in the shooting of Lodatto. He also faces capital murder charges in the killing of Gallagher.
NBC 5's Chris Van Horne and The Associated Press' Angela K. Brown contributed to this report.
