A Georgia sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed Saturday night while responding to a 911 call about a domestic dispute, officials said.

Paulding County Sheriff Gary Gulledge identified the deceased deputy as Brandon Cunningham, a 30-year-old father of two.

“Tonight we lost a hero,” Gulledge said.

Cunningham and another deputy were “ambushed” when they responded to a home in Hiram after receiving reports of a domestic dispute, Major Ashley Henson said during a news conference Saturday evening.

“Unfortunately, it appears our officers were ambushed,” Henson said, calling it an “incredibly tragic situation.”

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When officers arrived at the address, they were met with gunfire from the suspect inside the house, Henson said.

Cunningham was hit while the other deputy dodged the shot.

The male suspect, whom officers identified as 42-year-old James Samuel Atkins, was found dead at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A female victim at the scene, 52-year-old Kim Thao Vu, was also shot and taken to intensive care. She was in stable condition Saturday night, officials said.

Cunningham was a father of two children and had worked for the sheriff’s department since 2020.

His death marks the first officer killed in the line of duty in the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office.

In a statement shared on Facebook, the department called the incident “one of the most difficult in the history of the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office.”

“I ask you to pray for this family – both the blood and the blue,” Gulledge said during the press conference. “Everyone here is suffering, all of our staff is suffering.”

The Georgia deputy sheriff killed in an “ambush” was a 30-year-old father of two. Originally published on abcnews.go.com