Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert White is one of six finalists for the same position with the Dallas Police Department, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

The six finalists were announced Monday.

White did not return phone messages early Tuesday morning and a message to Mayor Jerry Abramson's office also went unreturned early Tuesday.

White joins chiefs from Austin, Tex., and San Jose, Calif., in the running to replace current Dallas Chief David Kunkle - who plans to retire in April, according to the Morning News report. The other candidates are three of Kunkle's assistant chiefs.

The candidates will undergo a two-day interview with four panels at Dallas City Hall, according to the report. A Dallas city spokeswoman said there is no target date to hire the new chief.

White was hired by Abramson in 2003 when the city and county police departments merged. Prior to serving as Louisville's chief, White spent more than four years as the police chief in Greesnboro, N.C.

Greg Fischer's mayoral campaign was endorsed by the Louisville Professional Fire Fighters, Local 345 on Monday.

The endorsement is significant because it is the first group of city employees to endorse Fischer, a Democrat, and because it comes from a group that is disgruntled with Mayor Jerry Abramson's administration.

A group of some 800 firefighters recently reached a $45 million settlement with the Abramson administration over a wage dispute that stretches back decades. It also had trouble negotiating a new contract with Abramson, and went four years without a contract before signing one two years ago.

Union president Craig Willman said the group was impressed by the way Fischer "continuously said 'we' instead of 'I.' He's about inclusion and it seems to us that he's interested in best practices and will have an open-door policy."

Fischer said he was "honored" by the endorsement.

The firefighters are the eighth union to endorse Fischer. Fellow Democrat Jim King is second with five union endorsements, including the coveted Jefferson County Teacher's Association which announced its picks last week. There are eight Democrats vying to win that party's nomination in May primary.

A suspect is dead after an overnight shootout with three police officers in Leitchfield, Kentucky.

It all started just after 11:00 p.m. at the Shell gas station on Main Street.

Officer Brandon Brooks was inside the business when an ambulance worker noticed a man outside the building with a rifle.

He alerted Officer Brooks who came outside and ordered the suspect to drop the weapon. That didn't happen so Officer Brooks called for backup. Sergeant Jack Holland arrived and traded fire with the suspect. A third officer, Brandon Cooke, was nearby. He arrived on the scene and was fired upon. He returned fire, hitting the suspect several times.

"There's going to be multiple shots because of suspect shooting off shots with a rifle and the officers returning fire so we won't know right away how many shots it is," said Bruce Reeves, KSP.

The suspect is 31-year-old Brandon Green of Caneyville. He was airlifted to University Hospital here in Louisville where he later died.

Two of the officers had minor injuries during the shootout, the third was not hurt.

The city of Louisville paid $150,000 this week to settle claims that two police officers used excessive force when they shocked a naked man with a Taser in September 2006.

The Metro government payment to the estate of Larry Noles on Wednesday settles a lawsuit accusing the officers of depriving Noles of his civil rights when they tried to take him into custody after he was found acting erratically at Seventh Street and Algonquin Parkway.

The suit claimed that Noles, 52, a Marine veteran who suffered from bipolar disorder, posed no threat to the officers or the public.

Noles died after he was Tasered, but the Kentucky medical examiner's office ruled that the cause of death was excited delirium, which affects people with a history of mental illness, alcoholism or drug addiction.

Garry Adams, one of the estate's lawyers, said he hopes the case "will play some part in the education of the Louisville Metro Police Department as to when it is appropriate to use a Taser, the number of times it should be used and where it should be used on the body, to make fatalities less likely."

An Adair County sheriff deputy has lost his job after accidentally locking himself in a jail cell and trying to shoot his way out of it.

Adair County Sheriff Ralph Curry says no one was hurt when Charles Wright fired his weapon into the bulletproof glass on Monday.

The incident occurred the first day the new $12.4 million Adair County Judicial Center had opened to the public after being under construction for more than a year.

Curry says Wright suffers from severe claustrophobia from serving in the Air Force, and that fear prompted Wright to freak out when he got trapped. Curry says Wright was a good employee, but he had to let him go.

Wright has agreed to pay for the damage to the cell.