RUMFORD — A Rumford police officer died from a gunshot wound Thursday during a confrontation with a game warden who was part of a group searching for him in the woods, officials said.

Administrative officer Eric Richard was shot shortly after 10 a.m. as game wardens and a pair of troopers using a tracking dog searched the woods, Attorney General William Schneider said. The officer and Warden Jeremy Judd were in an armed confrontation, Schneider said.

Richard, 46, died from a gunshot wound, but the manner of death has not yet been determined by the state medical examiner’s office, Schneider said.

The Sun Journal newspaper reported that law enforcement officials were asked to respond to a report of a despondent man who had a gun and was in the woods.

Several law enforcement agencies were on the scene Thursday including state police, the Maine Warden Service, Rumford police and deputies from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department. Investigators from the state attorney general’s office were also on the scene.

Col. Robert Williams, state police chief, went to the scene along with a team of detectives and evidence technicians.