Tom Corbett Vows To Bring Gunman To Justice After 'Assault On Society'

By Joe McDonald

BLOOMING GROVE, Pa., Sept 15 (Reuters) - Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett on Monday called the deadly ambush on a state police barracks "an assault on society" and vowed to bring to justice the gunman who killed one trooper and critically wounded another.

Yellow crime scene tape closed off the Blooming Grove law enforcement barracks about 100 miles (161 km) north of Philadelphia, where late on Friday the shooter killed Corporal Bryon Dickson, 38, and wounded Trooper Alex Douglass, 31.

Douglass was recovering after surgery and was speaking on Monday with investigators, police said.

The shooting touched off a massive manhunt across Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, said Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan.

No arrests have yet been made in the case and no weapon has been recovered, Noonan said.

Roughly 50 unmarked police cars lined the rural road leading to the barracks' empty parking lot, treated as a crime scene, outside the sand-colored, single-story building.

Blooming Grove is a township of roughly 5,000 people near the New York state border.

After touring the barracks on Monday, Corbett spoke to reporters at a nearby church, saying he would be meeting with the Dickson and Douglass families and urging media to respect their privacy.

"This is an assault that was not only on the individual troopers, it was an assault on state police, it was an assault on law enforcement," Corbett said.

"It was an assault on society - somebody who lies in ambush and assassinates one trooper and severely wounds another trooper," the governor said. (Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Osterman)