Tom Clements
Colorado Department Of Corrections Executive Director Tom Clements was shot and killed after a gunman rang his doorbell. Colorado.gov

Tom Clements, the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was shot and killed inside his home Tuesday night near Colorado Springs.

A member of the Clements family called 911 around 8:30 p.m. and told a dispatcher that Clements was shot, El Paso County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer told KRDO.

“The initial information was the doorbell had rung and when Mr. Clements answered the door he was shot,” Kramer told NBC News.

Nobody else in the home was shot.

Police were still looking for the shooter as of Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported.

"We did have some efforts from our K-9 unit to see if they could locate anything that might be helpful in this investigation; those efforts have been met with negative results," Kramer told KRDO.

Kramer added to NBC News, “[b]ecause we don’t have a suspect identified we don’t have an understanding at this point of what the suspect’s motive might have been.”

Authorities were going house to house in hopes Clements’ neighbors spotted the shooter, USA Today reported.

Clements began his tenure as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections in February 2012 after the state Senate unanimously confirmed him for the post, NBC News reported.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said the shooting has shocked the Centennial State.

"Last night, Tom Clements was killed at his home in Monument. I can hardly believe it, let alone write words to describe it," the governor said in a statement.

He called the Colorado Department of Corrections head “unfailingly kind and thoughtful.”

Hickenlooper was expected to make a public statement about Clements’ murder on Wednesday, according to KRDO.

Clements’ death also came a day before Hickenlooper was expected to sign new gun legislation that limits ammunition magazine capacity and expands background checks for gun purchases in Colorado, NBC News reported. The bills were inspired by the mass shooting during the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo.

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