St. Louis cop unsure if he can continue after shooting

ST. LOUIS -- A St. Louis police sergeant who was shot in the face randomly as he sat in traffic in his department sport-utility vehicle said he's wrestling with whether he can remain in law enforcement.

Tom Lake told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he's lucky to have survived the November shooting in which one bullet hit the father of three just below his left nostril and another pierced his left cheek.

Lake said he'd be dead had either bullet struck him a quarter of an inch in either direction.

Although the wounds have scarred over, the left side of his face remains numb and droops somewhat. He's expected to lose teeth because one bullet tore through their roots and stopped in his nasal canal. Doctors believe he swallowed and passed that bullet.

Fragments from the other bullet still are lodged in his cheek but are expected to work their way to the surface and fall out.

Lake and other officers believe resistance from Lake's closed SUV window may have lessened the impact of the bullets enough to spare him a more severe injury.

The motive for the shooting remains unclear. No charges have been filed, though police suspect Lake was shot by 19-year-old George P. Bush III, who was killed later that day in a shootout with other officers.

Investigators since have linked Bush to other crimes, including the slaying of a 52-year-old locksmith.

Police said the car Bush used when shooting Lake had been taken from a man shot in a carjacking in the St. Louis suburb of Affton, Missouri, the previous day.

Bush's death has done little to ease Lake's fears.

"As a police officer, you are trained on how to defend yourself in all sorts of situations," Lake said. "But I was completely defenseless."

Sitting in traffic Nov. 20 and on the phone with his father from Nebraska, Lake recalled, Lake saw a car pull into the left turn lane beside him. Then he saw a handgun with an extended magazine rise up and flash.

"I couldn't see; I couldn't hear; I let out a big scream," Lake recalled.

His father, still on the phone, heard it all and called Lake's wife, who called 911.

When other officers arrived, they found Lake slumped toward the passenger side of his car. Lake recalls one of them saying, "Oh, God, he's dead."

"Sorry guys, I just ate," Lake quipped back as they heaved him into the back of a patrol car for a dash to a hospital, where about 100 stitches were required to repair damage to Lake's mouth.

Since then, Lake's nervous 5-year-old son includes his father's scars on drawings and checks under his dad's coat to make sure he's not in uniform when he leaves the house. His other son, 8, and 9-year-old daughter don't want him to go to work, either.

He said he cannot imagine putting his wife or father through another close call.

"As policemen, we're supposed to be the toughest one on the block, and I ain't no more," Lake said. "I will never be the same policeman as I was when I started; I feel like I don't know how to be a policeman anymore. This man has taken my livelihood from me."

Lake will be eligible to retire in March when he completes 20 years on the force. His retirement pension would be 40 percent of his pay. If the pension board determines that his physical and emotional wounds qualify as a disability, he could get 75 percent.

"I survived the shooting," he said. "I can survive this."