A manhunt for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a veteran Texas police detective ended on Monday with an arrest in the killing, one of several weekend attacks against law enforcement in multiple states, authorities said.
The San Antonio, Texas, detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks on Sunday when they became the targets of violence.
The detective was writing a traffic ticket when he was shot to death in his squad car on Sunday morning outside police headquarters.
“I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that [the suspect] targeted,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said on Monday.
The 31-year-old man charged in the ambush shooting of Detective Benjamin Marconi said later on Monday that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and he took it out on the officer.
“I’ve been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn’t deserve it,” Otis Tyrone McKane told reporters as he was being led by police to the Bexar County Jail.
He said he wanted to apologize to the family of the slain officer.
In St Louis, Missouri, a police sergeant was shot twice in the face on Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from a hospital on Monday.
Law enforcement officials said there has been an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks.
Sixty officers, including the San Antonio detective, were shot to death on the job this year, compared with 41 in all of last year, according to the US’ National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared with eight last year, the group said.
Police officers were also shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested these were targeted attacks.
All the shootings have come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas.
Police have not said if race played a part in any of the attacks on Sunday.
In San Antonio, police said the suspect is black and the officer was white.
In St Louis, the suspect was black, but police have not released the officer’s race.
Most killings of police officers are carried out by white men, and most people shot and killed by police are white, memorial fund president Craig Floyd said.
McManus said McKane was arrested on a capital murder warrant without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped on Monday afternoon on a highway.
Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before 50-year-old Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot.
The suspect asked a desk clerk a question, but left before receiving an answer, McManus said.
St Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer who was shot and wounded there.
He said the officer is a married father of three and has been with the department for about 20 years.
“This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officer’s window,” Dotson said.
The suspect, 19-year-old George Bush III, was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Dotson said.
“We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him,” Dotson said. “That’s why he aggressively attacked a police officer.”
Police said Bush was later killed in a shoot-out with officers.
At least two other police officers were wounded in shootings in other cities, but it was not clear whether they were targeted attacks.
An officer with the Gladstone Police Department near Kansas City was shot, and the suspect was shot and killed. The officer is expected to recover.
Sanibel police officer Jarred Ciccone was shot in the shoulder during a traffic stop and released after being treated for his injuries.
Authorities said they arrested Jon Webster Hay, 49, about 90 minutes after the shooting.
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