COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A police officer and a man he was trying to arrest were wounded when they exchanged gunshots at a house in eastern Nebraska, police said Friday.

The gunbattle broke out Thursday evening when two officers arrived at the Columbus home to serve an arrest warrant. One took up a position at the rear of the house. A woman leaving the house told the other officer to go in the front door, police Capt. Todd Thalken said Friday, but the officer soon saw the man he sought, holding a handgun.

Thalken said it appears the man fired first, setting off the gunbattle, with the man switching to a rifle.

The man was hit five or six times and the officer at least twice, Thalken said. The officer stationed at the rear of the house reached the front as the shooting died down, so he never fired his weapon and wasn’t injured, the police captain said.

Thalken identified the wounded officer as Sgt. Brad Wangler, a 19-year veteran of the Columbus force, and the man as 24-year-old Jorge Robledo. Court records also list his first name as Jorje. The arrest warrant listed drug charges and other crimes in Hall County.

Both men were treated at Columbus Community Hospital before being transferred to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. A hospital spokesman refused to comment.

Wangler was in stable condition, Thalken said and is expected to undergo surgery on his throat, where one bullet went in and then out. Thalken said he didn’t have any information about Robledo’s condition.

It’s unclear whether the woman who told Wangler to go in the house knew Robledo was armed, Thalken said. Her actions will be investigated by Columbus police and the Nebraska State Patrol, he said.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Department of Education plans to spend more than $420,000 on consulting services for state interventions in low-performing “priority schools.”

The state is contracting with a North Carolina-based firm and one of the state’s educational service units to continue work in three schools: Druid Hill Elementary in Omaha, Santee Middle in Niobrara and Loup County Elementary in Taylor. The Omaha school was taken off the priority list last year but will continue to be monitored.

Schuyler Central High School near Fremont was designated a priority in February. The department is finalizing a plan with the school, despite pushback from district leaders who compared the priority label to a “scarlet letter.”

Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt dismissed that notion, saying: “Priority school, to me, is that you’re our priority at the department of education.”

“We aren’t the regulators on the outside saying ‘get better,'” he said. “We are partners and regulators.”

State lawmakers established the priority school system in 2014 after a law mandated classifying schools and districts by performance and intervening in three with the lowest classification.

The designation identifies schools that are demographically shifting and low achieving so state officials can diagnose problems and try to fix them.

Each institution is selected because it represents a category of Nebraska schools that face similar challenges, such as urban schools, Native American schools, small community schools and demographically shifting schools.

The education department plans to divert $118,000 to Schuyler to focus on English-language learners. The school has experienced a dramatic demographic change over the past 18 years, which is attributed to a nearby meatpacking plant.

About $21,000 of the consulting work will go toward ensuring that Druid Hill Elementary, though off the priority list, can maintain the progress it has made.

The department designated $60,000 to Loup County Elementary to bolster instructional leadership and $114,000 to Santee to build a school culture for students and staff.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police have announced an arrest in the shooting death of a man at a northwest Omaha convenience store.

A news release Friday afternoon from Omaha police says homicide detectives arrested 25-year-old Keiandre Kellogg on suspicion of first-degree murder and weapons counts in the late Thursday shooting.

Officers were sent to the Bucky’s store around 11:40 p.m. Thursday and found 22-year-old Jeremiah Plater shot near the gas pumps.

Police say Plater was taken to Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy, where he died.