On the morning of Sunday, Nov. 20, 20-year veteran of the San Antonio police department Benjamin Marconi was shot to death, according to NBC News. This was just one of four the shootings that took place within 24 hours.
Detective Marconi was writing a ticket for a traffic violation outside police headquarters in San Antonio when he was shot in the head, CBS reported. A few hours before the shooting, officials released video footage of the suspect entering the police department’s headquarters, according to Washington Post.
Otis Tyrone McKane, 31, was taken into custody on Monday, Nov. 21, for allegedly shooting Marconi, CNN reported. At 9:57 a.m. that same morning, McKane was issued a marriage license.
Police Chief William McManus said a SWAT team stopped McKane on Interstate 10 while he was riding with a woman and a 2-year-old, according to CNN.
“Society not allowing me to see my son,” McKane said, according to CNN. “I lashed out at somebody who didn’t deserve it.”
Out of the four shootings that took place in 24 hours, two of them were believed to be targeted, CBS said. The death of Marconi was one of the two.
“I think the uniform was the target,” McManus said, according to Washington Post.
The second targeted shooting was in St. Louis, Missouri, where a 46-year-old police sergeant was hospitalized in critical condition, CBS reported. He was shot twice in the head during what Police Chief Sam Dotson called an “ambush” on Sunday night.
The gunman was later killed when he shot at other officers who returned fire, Fox News reported.
“Fortunately for the blessing of God the officer’s going to survive,” Dotson said at a brief news conference after the shooting, according to CBS. The same news outlet added that Dotson wouldn’t reveal the sergeant’s name.
Two other police officers were shot on Sunday night, but it is unclear whether or not the shootings were targeted.
An officer in Sanibel, Florida, was shot and injured when a person fired at the officer while he sat in his patrol car after finishing a traffic stop before 8 p.m. The suspect was taken into custody, according to The News-Press.
Another incident in Gladstone, Missouri, left an officer with non-life-threatening injuries when he struggled with a man in his late teens that fled from a traffic stop, according to Fox News. The teen was killed after pulling out a handgun during the struggle.
The four shootings on Sunday came less than five months after a gunman killed five officers in Dallas who were working a protest for the fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, Fox News reported. It was the deadliest day for American law enforcement since 9/11.
Forty one out of 123 officer fatalities resulted from firearms in 2015, according to CNN. Marconi marks the 60th law enforcement officer who was shot and killed this year.
