BLUE LIVES

STL Suspect Dead in Day’s Fourth Police Shooting

After “ambush” in Texas, shootings in Florida, Kansas City.

A 19-year-old suspect sought in a Sunday night police “ambush” in St. Louis died hours later in a shootout with officers—capping a violent day with four police shootings reported across the U.S. In St. Louis, a police sergeant was shot twice in the head while sitting roadside in his patrol car, an attack eerily similar to a fatal police shooting in Texas earlier in the day. The officer in St. Louis, a 46-year-old with 20 years on the force whose name has not been released, was reported to be in critical but stable condition at a local hospital. “He was targeted because he was a police officer,” Mayor Francis Slay said at a press conference. “He didn’t stop anybody. He didn’t point a gun at anybody.” Undercover officers reportedly found the suspect’s vehicle at a parking garage and tracked him to a separate vehicle. According to police reports, the unnamed suspect jumped out of the car and fired at approaching officers, who pursued him on foot before shooting him dead. Earlier Sunday, a similar attack was carried out in San Antonio on an officer who was writing a ticket in his squad car; Det. Benjamin Marconi, 50, was killed instantly, and a suspect is still at large. Meanwhile, a Sanibel, Florida, policeman on a routine traffic stop was hit in his squad car in a drive-by shooting; he was hospitalized and his unnamed suspected assailant reportedly traded gunfire with police before he was taken into custody. In the fourth incident Sunday night, a Kansas City police officer and a suspect were both shot during a traffic stop in suburban Gladstone. The unnamed cop was treated and released; no information was available on the condition of the suspect.