ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis police officer shot and killed a man who was armed with a semiautomatic weapon that had an extended magazine after he didn’t comply with a command to drop the weapon, authorities say.
Police Chief John Hayden said officers stopped the 28-year-old man around 9:30 p.m. Thursday while patrolling in a “heavily trafficked drug area,” the St.. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The scene also is near a gas station where a 14-year-old was critically wounded two days earlier in the parking lot.
During the stop, the man took off running, with the officer in pursuit. Hayden says the officer saw that the man had a weapon but isn’t sure whether the suspect fired before he was killed. His name wasn’t immediately released.
It wasn’t immediately clear why officers stopped the man. Hayden described it as a “pedestrian check,” which he said occurs when an officer has “reasonable suspicion” to stop a person.
The shooting was the second one involving city police on Thursday. Around 3 a.m., an officer shot a man in the knee after he pointed a gun at officers, Hayden said.
