[chris]

A woman who took a McDonald's manager hostage inside a Willowick, Ohio, restaurant was shot and wounded by a police officer after she pointed what appeared to be a handgun, according to a Willowick Police Department report and contemporaneous local news coverage.

The confrontation happened on the evening of Jan. 25, 2012, at the McDonald's on Vine Street in the Lake County suburb east of Cleveland. Archived dispatch audio from that night is time-stamped 7:52 p.m. Emergency scanner traffic monitored by area residents captured the initial call for a woman with a gun, and The News-Herald of Willoughby reported that officers were sent to the restaurant.

The woman allowed customers and other employees to leave but kept the manager with her and demanded to speak with police, according to the accounts. When an officer reached the door, she pulled the manager close and pointed an object from her coat pocket that appeared to be a firearm, police said.

The officer fired twice, striking the woman in the torso, according to the police report. She was taken to a hospital in stable condition. Investigators said no weapon was recovered at the scene.

The absence of a firearm prompted speculation among scanner listeners who had followed the standoff that the woman may have been trying to force officers to shoot her, a scenario police sometimes call suicide by cop. Authorities did not state a motive in the initial report, and the case was listed as under investigation.

The recording preserved with this incident is dispatch radio traffic from Willowick's emergency channel, logged the night of the shooting, and not a caller's 911 line.