Suspect arrested in Texas cop ambush; St. Louis officer out of hospital

A manhunt for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a veteran Texas police detective ended Monday with an arrest in the killing that was one of several weekend attacks against law enforcement in multiple states, authorities said.

The San Antonio detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they became the targets of violence.

The detective was writing a traffic ticket when he was shot to death in his squad car Sunday morning outside police headquarters.

"I think the uniform was the target, and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted," San Antonio police chief William McManus said Monday.

In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening as he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from a hospital Monday.

The shootings were the latest in what law-enforcement officials say is a spike in ambush-style attacks.

Sixty officers were shot to death on the job this year, compared to 41 in 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer who was shot and wounded. He said the officer is a married father of three and has been with the department for about 20 years.

"This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officer's window," Dotson said.

The suspect, 19-year-old George P. Bush III, was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Dotson said without elaborating.

"We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him," Dotson said. "That's why he aggressively attacked a police officer."

Police said Bush later was killed in a shootout with officers.

An officer with the Gladstone, Missouri, police department was shot, and the suspect was shot and killed. The officer, whose name has not been released, is expected to recover.

San Antonio detective Benjamin Marconi, who was killed Sunday while writing the ticket, was a 20-year veteran of the force.

Chief McManus said Monday evening a 31-year-old man, Otis Tyrone McKane, was arrested on a capital-murder warrant without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped Monday afternoon on an interstate.

McManus said earlier he doesn't believe the suspect has any relationship to the motorist who was pulled over initially.

Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before Marconi was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked.

"I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said.

At least two other police officers were wounded in shootings in other cities Sunday, but it wasn't clear whether they were targeted attacks.