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An off-duty Cincinnati police officer survived being shot in the abdomen after an argument turned violent at a liquor store in the Cincinnati suburb of North College Hill on Feb. 26, 2010, police said.

Officer Thomas Owens, a school resource officer, was standing in line at Tom's Drive Thru, on the 1900 block of West Galbraith Road, when words were exchanged with another customer that Friday night, Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher said. The confrontation moved into the parking lot, where the other man opened fire and fled, police said. Owens was taken to University Hospital.

Investigators identified the shooter as 37-year-old Keenan Childs and obtained a warrant charging him with felonious assault. He was found two days later hiding at an Econo Lodge in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville, where deputy U.S. marshals and a regional fugitive task force took him into custody, police said.

Owens, a Cincinnati officer since 1996 and the varsity boys basketball coach at Shroder High School, was released from the hospital about a week later. Outside the hospital, he told reporters, "I feel good. I feel blessed." He said he planned to watch his team's next game from the sidelines rather than coach.

Childs' attorney told a judge her client acted in self-defense and did not know Owens was a police officer, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Witnesses at the scene said Owens had identified himself as an officer before the shooting, according to the newspaper.

In handwritten lawsuits later filed from the Hamilton County Justice Center, Childs said Owens accused him of cutting in line, threatened him and then attacked him from behind. Childs said the two were separated and police were called, but Owens confronted him again outside as he waited, so he fired one shot "to get him off."

Childs, seeking $500,000 in damages, asked the federal court to have criminal charges brought against Owens, naming Owens, Streicher, the Cincinnati Police Department and the store as defendants. A magistrate judge recommended the suit be dismissed as frivolous, and it was thrown out in December 2010. Court filings show Childs remained jailed and was still awaiting trial on the felonious assault charge at that time; no later record of a verdict, plea or sentencing in the case was found.