Police shot and killed GW employee Odetta Emanuel during a botched arrest in Northeast Washington Thursday night. A plainclothes officer and the suspect were also shot and wounded, according to Metropolitan Police reports.

The vehicle Emanuel was driving had been stopped by a plainclothes officer attempting to execute an arrest warrant for her companion, William Wade, 26. Two officers responding to a back up call mistook the plainclothes officer, Investigator Joseph Gatling, for an armed suspect and opened fire, wounding both Gatling and Wade and killing Emanuel, according to police reports.

Emanuel, an executive assistant in the Office of Student and Academic Support Services, began working at GW about a year ago. Vice President of SASS Robert Chernak said he was shocked by the killing and that Emanuel would be missed.

“She was a terrific worker, very nice,” Chernak said. “She would always go out of her way to be helpful.”

Chernak said Emanuel was planning to move back to her home in Minnesota this December to help take care of her parents who are both ill.

“She only was planning to be in the area for about a month, it just makes the story even sadder,” he said.

Wade, who was treated and released by Howard University hospital, was charged Friday with first degree murder for the Aug. 7 shooting of Thiery Jocelyn Nkol, 27, in Northwest D.C.

Officers Kevin Raynor and Antonio Long, who fired the shots at the intersection of 49th Place and Blaine Street, have been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation, according to police reports.