Patrol IDs suspect in Poplar Bluff officer-involved shooting

The Missouri State Highway Patrol continues to investigate an officer-involved shooting, which occurred just after midnight Wednesday morning on Poplar Bluff’s south side.

On Thursday, the patrol released the name of the suspect who was killed in the incident.

Bennie D. Foster, 55, of Poplar Bluff died at the scene on Highway 53, said Sgt. Clark Parrott, public information officer for Troop E.

“The Poplar Bluff Police Department responded to a burglar alarm at a business in Poplar Bluff,” Parrott said Wednesday.

Officers, he said, were confronted by a man with a weapon “in a threatening manner” and they “discharged their weapons, striking the subject.”

The Poplar Bluff Police Department, Parrott said, requested the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control investigate the officer-involved incident.

Four Poplar Bluff officers have been placed on paid administrative leave, said Police Chief Danny Whitely on Wednesday, while the Highway Patrol investigates the incident.