Law enforcement officers in 3 states gunned down 'ambush-style'
It was a bloody Sunday for American law enforcement. An officer in San Antonio was fatally shot outside his precinct station while writing up a traffic ticket. He was sitting in his car when the suspect pulled up behind him, got out of his car, and shot the officer in the head through the window. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The dead officer was identified as Detective Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran who was a father and grandfather.
Officers in St. Louis and Florida were also targeted and ambushed.
The second shooting was reported at about 7:30 Sunday evening in the city of St. Louis. A 46-year-old officer was sitting in traffic in his patrol car when another car pulled up alongside him. Someone inside shot the officer twice in the face then fled. The 19-year-old suspect was later shot and killed by police when authorities say he fired at officers searching for him. The officer who was shot in the face is expected to survive.
At 8 p.m., the third ambush-style shooting shocked the small coastal Florida town of Sanibel, where for the first time in the city’s history an officer was shot in the line of duty. Like the attack in San Antonio, the Florida officer was sitting in his car after a “routine traffic stop” when, according to the News-Press, a “drive-by shooter” opened fire. The injured officer was treated and released from a hospital, officials said, and the suspect was arrested after a shootout with police.
Sunday’s targeted shootings are the most recent in a string of similar attacks that have made headlines this year, beginning with the most extreme of them all, the ambush-style killings of five Dallas police officers in July. Since then, at least a dozen officers have been shot in what officials have called unprovoked attacks.
At least five other officers have been targeted and shot just this month; two fatally in Iowa; one fatally and another non-fatally in Pennsylvania; and one fatally in California.
At a news conference in San Antonio Sunday afternoon, San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor said the shooting there was “shocking and sobering,” and asked the community to remain “calm and prayerful” as authorities continued their search for the gunman.
Police Chief William McManus described the suspect as a dark-complected, slim male in his twenties or thirties. Witnesses described the man as dressed in gray pants and a gray shirt, and surveillance photos show him leaving the scene in a black sedan with chrome rims and tinted windows.
“We consider this person extremely dangerous and a clear threat to law enforcement officers and the public,” McManus said.
Detective Marconi becomes the 58th law enforcement murdered by gunfire this year. That number is a 71% increase over gun deaths of officers in 2015.
All three officers were sitting in their cars – two were writing up traffic tickets, and one was stuck in traffic. In two of the incidents, the attack was of the drive-by variety. The ambush of Detective Marconi was nothing less than a cold-blooded execution.
We can talk all we want about the dangerous rhetoric about policemen coming from the left – specifically Black Lives Matter. But the real-world consequences of this deliberately provocative and incendiary speech is being measured in the body count of law enforcement officers who are gunned down, leaving behind grieving families and brother officers.
It's ridiculous to suggest that there isn't a correlation between BLM hysteria about cops and the ambushing of officers. It's literally open season on the police. Until the left once and for all vigorously denounces and disavows this hate speech, the carnage will continue.