“When a police officer is shot, we encourage immediate prosecution to send a strong message we will show no mercy to such crimes,” Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly said. “When you do something wrong, you are going to be prosecuted.”

Officer Joseph Gregg was responding to a report of a domestic disturbance at a home in Kaibeto, about 75 miles north of Flagstaff in the same town where tribal police Sgt. Darrell Curley was killed in 2011.

Then, Curley also was responding to a domestic dispute. Victor Bigman, whose two sons were fighting and drinking, shot Curley four times as the officer tried to arrest his sons, prosecutors said. Curley died after returning fire and wounding Victor Bigman, who is serving 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Gregg was listed in good condition Tuesday, tribal spokesman Deswood Tome said.

Tome also said the shooting highlights the danger that Navajo police officers face when patrolling large swaths of the 27,000 square-mile reservation, sometimes alone. Fewer than 300 officers respond to roughly 250,000 calls per year, Shelly said recently. The ratio of officers per 10,000 people is far less than half that of similar nonreservation-based rural areas in the U.S., he said.