WEST POINT — A West Point police officer was hit in the side of the face several times with a brick while responding to a call in the 1200 block of East 13th Street on Thursday.

The officer was responding to a domestic dispute about 1 a.m. in the city’s housing authority property, said Capt. Kevin Carter, commander of the West Point police patrol division.

As the officer pulled up in his patrol car he spotted two people in the road, Carter said. The officer, whom West Point police did not yet want to identify, was seated in his car when an assailant approached from behind the driver’s side of the vehicle. The suspect then hit the officer in the side of the face and arm with a clay brick, Carter said.

The attacker and the other two people in the road then ran.

According to West Point Police protocol, whenever a domestic disturbance call is dispatched, more than one officer will respond to the scene, Carter explained.

He said other West Point police officers were already in the area, but the attack happened within seconds. Multiple back up units were cresting a hill to answer the domestic dispute call when they saw the assaulted officer, and the suspects were already gone, stated Carter.

The other officers helped their comrade until EMTs arrived and transported him by ambulance to EAMC-Lanier hospital in Valley, Alabama.

“That is one of the worst calls any patrol commander could get … to hear that one of your officers is hurt,” said Carter. “But it could have been so much worse.”

The officer was treated for cuts and bruises and released from the hospital.

The patrol commander said investigators are working on leads and hope to have one or more suspects in custody by Sunday.