Police chief: Officer shot, hospitalized in St. Louis suburb

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A suburban St. Louis police officer was hospitalized Friday after being shot during a confrontation with a motorist, authorities said.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar didn’t offer any immediate word about the medical status of the Ballwin officer wounded during the shooting, which happened at about 11 a.m. Friday. But Belmar told KMOV-TV the officer took “a hard hit.”

Belmar, who said a suspect is in custody and a gun was recovered, was to offer more details about the incident at a news conference later Friday. The officer’s name has not been released.

Belmar said that after the shooting, the suspect sped away but abandoned the car and ran. The suspect was arrested after a foot chase.

Gov. Jay Nixon’s spokeswoman Channing Grate said he would not leave for an eight-day overseas trade mission Friday as planned and instead would return to Missouri from an event in Philadelphia. Nixon said he was concerned about recent events, including the fatal Dallas police shootings and the shooting of the Ballwin officer.

The west St. Louis County police force in 30,000-resident Ballwin has 51 commissioned officers and “will serve the community through professional conduct at all times without prejudice or bias,” according to the department’s website.

Three times since 2005, the suburb, which is roughly 90 percent white, has been named by Money magazine as among the nation’s 100 best places to live due to, among other things, its low crime rate.