RAINIER, Ore. >> The popular police chief of a small Oregon town was shot to death Wednesday while investigating a report of an attempted car theft at a strip mall, authorities said.

The suspect was wounded by gunfire shortly afterward after several officers rushed to the scene.

The killing of Rainier Police Chief Ralph Painter, 55, stunned the town of 1,800 along the Columbia River, which had never before lost an officer in the line of duty.

“Ralph Painter has been here for over 20 years and worked his way up through the ranks from police officer to sergeant to police chief,” said Mayor Jerry Cole. “It’s like the dream job, or dream town, for a police officer. He’ll be missed greatly.”

Cole said Rainier’s police force consisted of Painter and four other officers, and it was not unusual for the chief to respond to a call. “We’re a small agency, and we use every resource available.”

Painter has a son in law enforcement, Cole said.

“It’s just a sad day for Rainier,” he said.

The suspect was not identified Wednesday. Columbia County Sheriff Jeff Dickerson said he’s not believed to be from Rainier. Authorities said he was hospitalized.

At a news conference, Dickerson would not say how the suspect was armed, or whether Painter was shot with his own weapon. He said he didn’t know who fired the round that hit the suspect.

Painter went to the Rainier Sound Authority shop, a car audio dealer, about 10:45 a.m. because “a person there was trying to take a vehicle that did not belong to him,” the sheriff said.

“When he arrived, he confronted a suspect,” Dickerson said. “The suspect fired a shot at the chief and struck him, and he died as a result of the injuries.”

Witnesses said other officers from a variety of agencies arrived at the strip mall quickly, eventually numbering as many as 30.

The officers ordered a man to drop a weapon and fired multiple shots into the Sound Authority building, said John Harper, who is opening a tobacco store.

“The cops just unleashed on him,” he told the Longview Daily News.

The Rev. Jeff McCracken of the Rainier Assembly of God church described 20 to 30 police cars converging on the strip mall and a man “kinda wandering around” a late 1960s Chevelle.

“They started yelling at him to drop the weapon, which we hadn’t seen because he was on the far side of the vehicle,” McCracken told AP Radio in a phone interview. He said he told people in the church to get down.

“A round came through the window that I was looking through, about six inches above my head where I’d just been standing,” McCracken said. “There’s gunfire going off from the police officers, as well, so we just got out of there as quickly as we could.”