Police Officers Shot, Wounded In Missouri, Georgia
BALLWIN, Mo. (CBSNewYork/CBS News/AP) -- Police officers were shot and wounded in Missouri and Georgia Friday, just hours after five officers were killed in Dallas.
Prosecutors said a man was charged Friday with assault of a police officer, armed criminal action and being a felon in possession in the shooting of a police officer during a traffic stop in the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch said Friday at a news conference that Antonio Taylor has been charged with the three felonies in the incident, which happened during a traffic stop.
Taylor was being held on $500,000 cash bond late Friday and was expected to be arraigned Monday morning.
Authorities have said the officer, who was left in critical condition, was ambushed while walking back to his car after an initial conversation. They have not provided the race of the officer or Taylor.
St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar has said Taylor was on probation for a weapons violation in St. Louis and had served time and was paroled in 2015.
Meanwhile in Valdosta, Georgia near the Georgia-Florida state line, a man who called 911 to report a car break-in Friday ambushed a police officer dispatched to the scene. The incident sparked a shootout in which both the officer and suspect were wounded, authorities said. Both are expected to survive.
Officer Randall Hancock was shot multiple times as he responded to a 911 call about a car break-in outside the Three Oaks Apartments just after 8 a.m. Friday, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress said at a news conference.
"The officer called out on the radio screaming for assistance," Childress said, and officers from multiple law enforcement agencies swarmed the apartment complex.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later identified the suspected gunman as 22-year-old Stephen Paul Beck and said it was Beck who also placed the 911 call. Both Childress and Dutton identified the suspect as an Asian male. Charges against Beck were still pending Friday as he was being treated at a Florida hospital, Dutton said.
The officer is white, according to Valdosta city spokeswoman Sementha Mathews.
Dutton said one gunshot hit the officer in the abdomen, just below his protective vest. Other shots hit Hancock's vest. The officer fired back and wounded the suspect.
Hancock underwent surgery at a local hospital and was stable Friday as he rested with his family by his side, Childress said. The suspect was also considered stable, he said.
And the morning before the Dallas shooting, a man opened fire in Bristol, Tennessee – killing a newspaper carrier and injuring three others including a local police officer, CBS News reported.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said says 37-year-old Lakeem Keon Scott was armed with at least two weapons, an automatic-style rifle, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition in the Thursday morning incident, reports CBS station WJHL in Tennessee.
According to the TBI, the victims were:
• Jennifer Rooney (A Bristol Herald Courier newspaper carrier): Deceased after being shot driving in her vehicle on Volunteer Parkway.
• Deborah Watts: In serious, but stable, condition at Bristol Regional Medical Center after being shot while working at the Days Inn.
• David Whitman Davis: Received minor injuries at the scene after being injured by flying glass resulting from the gunfire.
• Officer Matthew Cousins: Sustained a superficial wound to the leg. Was subsequently treated and released from BRMC.
Preliminary findings indicate Scott may have targeted people and officers after being troubled by recent events involving African-Americans and law enforcement officers in other parts of the country.
Investigators spoke with Scott Friday morning. Agents say "the work to develop a thorough understanding of his motivation for this incident remains central to the ongoing investigative work."
In Dallas Thursday night, five officers were killed and seven more were wounded when a suspect opened fire at the end of a rally against police violence. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, acted alone in the shooting rampage.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown reported that Johnson said he was upset over recent police shootings of black men and wanted to kill white people.
At a news conference Friday, Brown said the suspect made the comments before he was killed during a standoff with police in a downtown Dallas parking garage.
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