Officers injured, slain in what appear to be targeted shootings

(CNN)Police are on high alert -- and in at least one city, mourning -- after four officers were shot Sunday in incidents around the country.
Perhaps most startling to law enforcement is that in three of the shootings, it appears the alleged perpetrators specifically targeted police officers, according to authorities and local media reports.

An officer in Sanibel, Florida, was shot in a drive-by as he conducted a traffic stop; a Gladstone, Missouri, officer was shot after a traffic stop that produced a foot chase and shootout; a 20-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department was wounded in what authorities characterize as an ambush; and San Antonio Police Detective Benjamin Marconi was killed outside police headquarters in what appears to be another ambush.
In describing the circumstances leading to Marconi's death, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus cited recent ambush attacks on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the former, sniper Micah Xavier Johnson in July killed five officers protecting activists demonstrating after the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Later that month, Iraq veteran Gavin Long ambushed three officers in Baton Rouge, fatally shooting them.
Marconi's death marked the 58th fatal shooting of an officer this year -- well ahead of the number for all of 2015 (41) but not quite on pace to challenge the 2011 total of 73, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Police are still looking for the San Antonio suspect, while the St. Louis suspect was killed following an exchange of gunfire with police, authorities said. The suspect in Gladstone was killed as well, while the Sanibel suspect was taken into custody after a shootout at a golf-and-tennis community, local media outlets reported.

Here's what we know about each incident.

San Antonio

Marconi, 50, pulled over a driver outside police headquarters just before noon Sunday and, after addressing the driver, returned to his patrol car to write a ticket.
A man pulled up behind Marconi, exited his vehicle, approached Marconi's car and shot him in the head, McManus said. The suspect then shot Marconi again through the open window of the squad car, the police chief said.
"I believe the uniform was targeted," McManus said Monday at a news conference.
Marconi, who had spent almost half of his life on the force, was killed, and the suspect drove away. He is considered extremely dangerous, police say.
Investigators said the suspect is a slim black man in his 20s or 30s, wearing a hoodie and baggy pants. He's driving a black Mitsubishi Galant with chrome rims and tinted windows.

St. Louis

Investigators tracked down the suspect in the police shooting as he was riding in a friend's car, which officers attempted to pull over, according to police.
The alleged gunman darted from the car, firing once at police, before officers returned fire, killing the suspect early Monday, police said. A pistol with a high-capacity magazine was recovered from the scene.
Authorities did not identify the suspect, but St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said the man was implicated in multiple robberies, a carjacking and a potential homicide. It's likely, Dotson said, that the suspect fired at the police officer Sunday night out of fear of being recognized as a suspect in the string of crimes.
Around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, the gunman pulled up to a marked police SUV and shot a 46-year-old
officer twice in the head.

Officer-involved shooting. The suspect is deceased after shooting at officers again. He was wanted for shooting officer earlier tonight.
— St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) November 21, 2016

During tonight's investigation, officers pulled behind suspect vehicle when the suspect fled on foot from car & fired shots at officers.
— St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) November 21, 2016

Suspect's shots struck officers' vehicle. Officers not shot. Officers returned fire, striking & killing suspect. Suspect's gun recovered.
— St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) November 21, 2016
Suspect wanted for violent crimes. We believe suspect shot officer earlier in evening in fear of being recognized. Investigation ongoing.
— St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) November 21, 2016

"This officer was not trying to pull this car over," Dotson said. "This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed."
The wounded officer's gun was in his holster during the shooting, and the veteran sergeant and married father of three told police he saw a muzzle flash to his left and felt the glass window shatter against him, Dotson said.

The officer was in critical but stable condition, according to a late Sunday tweet from St. Louis police.

Sanibel

Just before 8 p.m. Sunday, an officer was working a traffic stop when a man drove by and opened fire, according to a police statement.
The suspect then drove to his home in The Dunes on Sanibel Island, a country club community, where he engaged police in a shootout before being taken into custody, police said.
Several media outlets, including CNN affiliates WINK, WBBH, WZVN and WFTX, reported that the alleged gunman was wounded, likely in the back and shoulder, during the shootout.
Resident Jeanne Vaughn told WINK she heard six gunshots during the search, which witnesses said included at least 20 police cars and a helicopter.
"I heard a police siren and then, (a) minute later I heard a bunch of shots. Bang, bang, you know, bang, bang, bang," Vaughn told the station. "And then I heard more police sirens and I see police coming up and down the streets."

According to WBBH, the officer, whose name CNN is working to confirm, was lauded as officer of year by the Lee County Bar Association. The officer earned the honor after using a defibrillator to save a woman's life, the station reported.
He has been treated and released from a local hospital.

Gladstone
The Gladstone Police Department officer who was shot late Sunday underwent surgery and is expected to make a full recovery following rehab, the department tweeted.
Because the officer was shot in Kansas City, of which Gladstone is a suburb, Kansas City police are fielding questions about the case. They could not immediately be reached for details.

Thanks to all for their prayers and calls of support. Our officer is out of surgery and is expected to make a full recovery following rehab.
— Gladstone DPS (@gladstonedpsmo) November 21, 2016

Thankfully Gladstone officer shot tonight is expected to live. Not many more details but this is the best news we could have asked for.
— KCFOP (@kcfop) November 21, 2016

According to CNN affiliate KSHB, the incident began with a traffic violation and routine stop. That is, until a teenage suspect took off running and officers gave chase.

As officers attempted to take the teen into custody, a struggle ensued, the suspect produced a handgun, shots were fired and the suspect was killed, police told KSHB. The driver of the vehicle from which the teen fled was taken into custody, questioned and released.
The injured officer remained at the hospital early Monday, the Gladstone Department of Public Safety tweeted.

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Angel4Truth said:

How much of this will be enough for you liberals to learn what you are causing?

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Crucible said:

Liberals will flop around with misdirection and excuses, then top it off with a "You're racist" if you make them mad.

They all have Stockholm syndrome- you cannot reason with them.

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quip said:

It's only gonna get worse with Trump at the helm.

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Angel4Truth said:

They have already crossed into terrorism.

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Angel4Truth said:

You mean liberals are going to keep getting worse (tantrums) since they cant keep getting their way? They have already crossed into terrorism.

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quip said:

By liberal you mean disenfranchised young black urban males ...probably, given that the Trump administration views equality as a liberal pejorative.

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Angel4Truth said:

And others who keep them down, and is not conservatives doing that, its the liberal who keep telling them they are victims and cant be anything else.

You do know it was an urban black who killed that cop because liberals hate cops and need a scapegoat (the black man).

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Arthur Brain said:

If you're going to reduce this to 'liberalism' then you're not even serious on the topic. Do the actions of far right extremists reflect conservative thinking in general? Of course not and it would be lazy, ignorant and tired to suggest it does. This pigeon holing of people is lame.

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Angel4Truth said:

You know you dont have to post to me, or discuss anything with me, right?

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Arthur Brain said:

Sure, you know you can choose to ignore my response if you don't want to address it as well, right?

:AMR:

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Angel4Truth said:

:yawn: Anything to offer on the op?

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Police in San Antonio said Monday that they had arrested a man wanted in the ambush killing of an officer fatally shot a day earlier.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said during a briefing that a SWAT team had arrested Otis Tyrone McCain. According to McManus, McCain was arrested without incident following a sprawling manhunt sparked by the killing of Detective Benjamin Marconi, who was slain while writing a traffic ticket in front of police headquarters on Sunday morning.

McCain is “the person we believe is responsible for the cold and calcuated murder of Detective Marconi,” McManus said during a briefing late Monday afternoon.

“We are relieved to have taken him into custody without a further loss of life,” McManus said.

Police said they still do not know a motive for Marconi’s death, and McManus declined to say what led authorities to the 31-year-old McCain. During a briefing earlier in the day, McManus said police did not believe the officer’s death was tied to another attack in St. Louis that occurred hours later on Sunday.

“I will say that it is certainly a coincidence, but we’re not going to venture to say that it’s connected,” McManus said.

Marconi was one of three officers shot Sunday in attacks that police described as ambushes, a spate of targeted shootings that also wounded police officials in Missouri and Florida. The other two officers — who, like Marconi, were sitting inside their patrol cars when they were shot — are expected to survive.

These shootings occurred four months after eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge were gunned down in separate ambushes just days apart, attacks that added to fears among law enforcement and have helped fuel an increase in the number of officers killed by gunfire this year.

Officers in San Antonio “absolutely felt targeted,” McManus said during a briefing Monday morning. “I feel they were targeted.”

McManus said that he believed the attacker in San Antonio was going after a member of law enforcement rather than specifically targeting Marconi.

“I think the uniform was the target, and anyone, the first person who happened along, was the person that he targeted,” McManus said.

During the briefing after McCain was arrested, McManus said that officers still remain wary in the face of other threats facing law enforcement.

“The fact that he’s been taken into custody, that does not negate the fact that there are people out there who are still targeting police officers,” McManus said. “So our officers will always be vigilant and on guard for that.”

Police also said Monday that the suspected attacker had briefly visited the department’s headquarters not long before the shooting, although McManus said investigators were not sure what prompted this visit.

“I don’t know why he was at headquarters,” McManus said. “We have some ideas why we believe he may have been in headquarters, but we’re not quite sure.”

Police had McCain under surveillance for a few hours before they took him into custody, McManus said.

At the time of his arrest, McCain was driving a car with an unidentified woman and a two-year-old, and McManus said he did not know about the relationship between any of them.

Officials had released video footage they said showed McCain entering the department’s headquarters in downtown San Antonio.

In one video, a man is seen leaning over and speaking to an intercom outside the building moments before the automatic doors swing open and he walks inside. The same man apparently walks back out of the building just 26 seconds later. Another video clip shows the man walking inside the lobby.

McManus said there were no uniformed police personnel in the lobby at the time. He declined to say what this man said at the intercom that prompted the doors to be opened for him to enter the building.

Marconi, 50, had been with the San Antonio police for two decades. On Sunday morning, he was making a traffic stop in front of police headquarters when an attacker parked behind his police car and walked up to the window.

The attacker fired a shot into the car, hitting Marconi in the head, before reaching “in through the open window and fired a second shot,” hitting him again, McManus said during a briefing Sunday. Marconi was brought to an area hospital and was pronounced dead not long after.

In a statement released by police, Marconi’s family asked for privacy so they could “mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend, and last but not least, a peace officer.”

Hours after Marconi was killed, an officer was sitting in a patrol car in St. Louis when someone pulled up and opened fire. That attacker was later fatally shot by police when he fired at officers searching for him, authorities said. Another officer was shot near Kansas City, Mo., after a struggle following a traffic stop, police said.

Also Sunday evening, an officer in Sanibel, a small city in southwest Florida, was in his car after a traffic stop when someone drove by and opened fire. The officer was treated and released from a hospital, while the suspect was arrested after a shootout with police.

hese shootings come on the heels of a deadly attack earlier this month in Iowa, where police said that a man ambushed two police officers, killing both of them, as they sat in their police cars.

There have also been a series of other shootings this month. An Alaska officer was ambushed and shot multiple times, while in California a deputy sheriff responding to a call about a suspicious van was fatally shot. A New York Police Department officer was killed and another wounded while responding to a reported home invasion.

On Friday, just two days before the shootings in Texas, Missouri and Florida, Patrick Carothers, a deputy commander with the U.S. Marshals Service, was fatally shot in Georgia trying to arrest a wanted man.

“Over the last several days, the nation has witnessed a disturbing spate of violence against law enforcement officer across the country,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement Monday. Pointing to the deaths in Georgia and Texas, as well as the other shootings, Lynch added: “These reprehensible acts cannot be tolerated and they again remind us of the significant hazards that public safety officers confront each and every day on our behalf.”

The San Antonio attack occurred just 270 miles away from where five Dallas police officers were killed during a protest in July against police shootings in other cities. Ten days after the bloodshed in Dallas — the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — another lone attacker gunned down three officers in Baton Rouge.

“In the wake of the tragic ambush that occurred in San Antonio along with the other three police shootings that happened across the nation yesterday, I have reminded our officers to take extreme caution as they perform their duties and to always be aware of their surroundings and cover each other,” David Pughes, the interim Dallas police chief, said in a statement Monday. He also encouraged officers “to work with a partner if they choose.”

Through Monday, there have been 60 officers fatally shot this year, up from 36 at the same point last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks line-of-duty deaths. There have been 126 officers killed this year, up from 109 last year, according to the fund’s data.

The number of officers fatally shot by suspects has declined in recent decades, falling from an average of 127 officers shot and killed during the 1970s to about 53 officers each year during the last decade.

But during an era of protests nationwide against how police use force, current and former members of law enforcement have described feeling under siege, and the high-profile ambush attacks this year have ratcheted up fears among those who serve. Some officers have said they keep their guns with them at times they otherwise would not, while others described being more wary when in public. FBI Director James Comey, speaking to a gathering of police chiefs last month, said officers were serving during “a uniquely difficult time in American law enforcement.”

Lynch, in her statement Monday, noted that 2016 “has been an especially dangerous year for police officers, with a significant increase in the number of officers killed in the line of duty since Jan. 1.” She said that the Justice Department would continue to aid local and state law enforcement officials “in any way that we can to reduce the frequency and deadliness of these tragic incidents.”

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said that the shootings illustrated a need for stronger background checks to “to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them” as a way to keep officers safe.



Statement on murder of San Antonio Police Officer pic.twitter.com/m1WrgMaFva

— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) November 20, 2016

In San Antonio, McManus ordered officers to double up while on patrol until they catch the suspect in Marconi’s death. He said that as the sprawling manhunt for Marconi’s killer approached the 24-hour mark, police had questioned a number of people and at one point took into custody, and then released, a person of interest.

McManus had said that investigators were casting a very wide net in their hunt for a suspect in the killing.

“We have pulled out all the stops,” McManus said before authorities arrested McCain, adding that the manhunt “will not stop until this person is in custody.”

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Angel4Truth said:

And others who keep them down, and is not conservatives doing that, its the liberal who keep telling them they are victims and cant be anything else.

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You do know it was an urban black who killed that cop because liberals hate cops and need a scapegoat (the black man).

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