GREEN PARK, Missouri -- A St. Louis County police officer shot "almost immediately" after he got out of his car while answering a call Thursday morning has died, police said.
A second officer then shot the suspect, an 18-year-old man who was badly injured.
The shooting happened shortly after 5 a.m. in Green Park, said Benjamin Granda, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police. Green Park is a small city in south St. Louis County northwest of the South County Center mall.
Shortly after the shooting, Granda said both the officer and suspect were "in bad shape." Police later said the officer had died.
The officer was identified as Blake Snyder, 33. He had been with the department at least four years and leaves behind a wife and 2-year-old son.
In a press conference Thursday morning, St. Louis County Chief Jon Belmar called Snyder a "tremendous police officer" and said it had been a "tough day."
St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger offered condolences to the officer's family in a statement Thursday morning.
"This demonstrates the extreme danger that first responders face every day" Stenger said in the statement. "Our police have my steadfast support and I pledge to do everything I can to provide them with all the resources they need to ensure their safety.
"I ask the residents of St. Louis County and the entire St. Louis Metropolitan area to keep all of our police officers in their thoughts and prayers.”
Snyder is the 10th St. Louis County officer to be killed in the line of duty since the department's inception in 1955. The last county officer killed in the line of duty was on Halloween night in 2000, when Sgt. Richard Weinhold, 44, was shot during a disturbance call.
Police said officers were called to the area at 5:04 a.m. for a disturbance. A man was banging on the doors of a house and demanding to be let in.
The officer radioed back that he had arrived on Arno Drive in Green Park, but nothing else.
When Snyder arrived, the man was apparently sitting in the driver's seat of a car, Belmar said. Snyder couldn't see the man's hands and apparently ordered the man to show them, Belmar said. That's when the man pulled a gun and shot Snyder.
Authorities said that all happened within minutes of the original call, at an hour when it was still dark out.
Police aren't looking for any additional suspects.
The officers were not wearing body cameras and the police cars do not have dash cameras. Belmar said a person witnessed the shooting. The gunman's weapon was found at the scene.
The suspected gunman was the subject of a narcotics investigation that involved Snyder, but Belmar said he wasn't drawing a connection there. Police believe the suspected gunman lived nearby.
He was shot "a lot," Belmar said. He wasn't sure how many times. The suspect was in critical condition at a hospital. Belmar said warrants against the man are imminent.
Nearly two dozen officers blanketed the scene of the shooting, near Arno and Guehring drives, Thursday morning.
Jack Buck III, the famous sports broadcaster's grandson, lives around the corner and three houses up from the shooting scene. He said he was asleep at about 5:15 a.m. when he heard the shots.
"It was an exchange of pop-pop, pop-pop-pop," he said. "Maybe 8 to 12 shots."
At first he thought it might be fireworks. He looked outside and saw the lights of a police car.
Buck described Green Park as a small, middle-class community that was relatively free of crime until about a month ago. Last week, someone on a nearby street reported a burglary. And about four weeks ago, nearly every car on his street was broken into, he said.
Vicki Englund, a former state representative and a current member of the Lindbergh School Board, lives catty-corner to the shooting. She said the sounds woke her up. At first, it was a couple shots and she didn't think much of it.
"You think it's a car backfiring, what else could it be?"
She didn't see what happened but heard a series of shots and someone — she presumes an officer — yelling at someone else to get back inside a house.
"I heard couple shots then a pause then I heard 10 or so in a row and someone yell 'Get back in the house' or 'Are you gonna get back in the house?' in a very strong, controlled voice," she said. "And then a few more shots."
Mike Miller, 33, lives in the neighborhood. He said the shooting was in front of a home that is a trouble spot. A woman lives there with a teen and other children and it is a suspected drug house, he said. A few weeks ago, two youths were caught smoking marijuana in a car in front of the home, he said.
"Ever since then, you'd see a police car patrolling this street every hour," he said.
Another neighbor said he saw a car on Arno, near the shooting scene, with its windows shot out.
The shooting comes about three months after a Ballwin officer was shot and paralyzed during a traffic stop in July.
Officer Michael Flamion is recovering at a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado after the shooting. He was shot in the back while returning to his car during a traffic stop on New Ballwin Road on July 8, police say. Antonio Taylor, 31, was charged in the shooting.
Christine Byers and Steve Giegerich of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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