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P.M. Update, Friday Jan. 22

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PITTSTON &mdash; Luzerne County detectives and city police were busy Friday investigating a police-related shooting in the area of Butler and Defoe streets.
				District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis said two city officers stopped on Butler Street where two men approached their cruiser at about 1:15 a.m.
				When the officers shined a flashlight toward the two men, one of them discharged several rounds from a firearm.
				Officers returned fire as the two men fled on foot on Butler Street, Salavantis said.
				Police chased the two men arresting Christopher Essameddin Birry, 39, of Academy Street, Scranton, during a foot chase.
				The man who fired rounds at the officers managed to elude capture.
				Salavantis described the gunman as a light skinned male, possibly Hispanic, approximately 30 years old, and wore a blue or dark-colored hooded sweatshirt and had a dark scruffy beard.
				A surveillance camera in the area recorded the shooting.
				State police troopers with the Forensic Services Unit processed the scene.
				Salavantis said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the probe. 
				A parked vehicle in the area had three gunshot holes.
				According to the criminal complaint filed against Birry:
				Two city officers were fired upon by an unknown male in the area of Butler Street and Davis Alley.
				The gunman and another man, identified as Birry, fled on foot.
				Police from the area swarmed the area arresting Birry in the area of Church and Williams streets, about a block from where the shooting occurred, the complaint says.
				Birry was allegedly in possession of a plastic bag containing methamphetamine.
				Birry was arraigned by District Judge Alexandra Kokura Kravitz in Pittston on charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was jailed at the county correctional facility for lack of $225,000 bail.
				Birry had been free on $225,000 unsecured bail on a drug trafficking charge by county detectives in Wilkes-Barre on Dec. 3, court records say.
				Anyone who has information about the shooting is asked to call 911 and request District Attorney Chief County Detective Michael Dessoye.

Detectives investigating shooting in Pittston