Man charged in ambush shooting of St. Louis police officer

ST. LOUIS -- A 23-year-old man St. Louis police say ambushed and opened fire on a uniformed sergeant was arrested Thursday and charged with four felonies in a shooting the police chief has decried as an attempted assassination.

Prosecutors charged Dale LaVaughn Wolford Jr. with one count of assault on a law enforcement officer, alleging Wolford "attempted to kill or to cause serious physical injury" to the officer identified in court documents only as "Sergeant L." Wolford also is charged with two counts of armed criminal action and one count of shooting a firearm from a motor vehicle.

Authorities believe Wolford was masked by a bandanna when he emerged from a car occupied by three other men before dawn Tuesday and fired a semiautomatic handgun into the private vehicle of the 39-year-old police sergeant. The officer, who was doing department-approved security work in the city's tony Central West End neighborhood, returned fire.

The suspects' car sped away, and the gunman fled on foot.

The officer, who police chief Sam Dotson said was saved by his body armor that blocked a round fired into his chest, was treated at a hospital and released.

Wolford was jailed Thursday on $200,000 cash bond, and online court records did not show whether he has an attorney. The suspected getaway driver, 27-year-old Edward Jerome Davis, remained jailed on $200,000 cash bond Thursday.