Three police officers were wounded and one killed in various attacks on police and exchanges of gunfire in three states on Sunday.
At approximately 11:45 a.m. Sunday, a man walked up on San Antonio detective Benjamin Marcon’s police vehicle and opened fire, killing Marcon as he was writing a traffic citation for another vehicle. CNN quoted San Antonio police chief William McManus saying, “I believe that the uniform was targeted.”
Police believe the suspect shot from outside the driver’s side window, then, when the glass was shattered, literally reached into the car and fired at Marcon again.
Police described the suspect as “a slim black man in his 20s or 30s in a gray shirt and gray pants.” They believe “he stands between 5-feet-7-inches and 6-feet tall and has a goatee.” They also believe he fled the scene in “a Mitsubishi Galant with chrome rims and dark tinted windows.”
At approximately 7:30 pm Sunday night, a man pulled up next to a St. Louis patrol car at an intersection and opened fire, striking a police sergeant twice in the face. The sergeant was conscious and able to talk when first responders arrived on scene, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that he recounted feeling pieces of the shattered passenger door glass hit his face.
The sergeant, a 20-year veteran of the force, is expected to survive. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said the sergeant “was targeted because he was a police officer. He didn’t stop anybody. He didn’t point a gun at anybody.” The suspect, an unnamed 19-year-old, was killed during a shootout with police hours later.
A Sanibel, Florida, officer was shot and wounded moments after the St. Louis sergeant was shot. News-Press reported the officer “was wounded by a drive-by shooter as he sat in his patrol car after completing a routine traffic stop near Bailey and Sandcastle roads.” He is the first officer ever to be shot in the city of Sanibel.
Sanibel police, together with deputies from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, later located the shooting suspect, arrested him, and charged him with “attempted homicide.” The suspect, 45-year-old Jon Webster Hay, is being held without bond and will make his first court appearance on Tuesday. The Sanibel officer who was shot went to the hospital for treatment and was then released.
Around 10:34 p.m., a Gladstone, Missouri, officer was shot and wounded. Fox 4 reported that an officer stopped a vehicle, and the passenger fled. Multiple officers gave chase on foot, caught the fleeing suspect, and “a struggle ensued.” Shots were exchanged, leaving a Gladstone officer wounded and the suspect dead. The suspect was “described as a man in his late teens.”
The officer’s wounds are described as “non-life threatening.”
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.