JOPLIN, Mo. — In the wake of shootings that left one police officer dead and two others badly wounded, the mayor of Joplin urged residents Wednesday to pull together, just as they did 11 years ago when a massive tornado devastated the southwestern Missouri city.
The officer who was killed Tuesday was Cpl. Benjamin Cooper, a husband and father of two daughters, Joplin Police Chief Sloan Rowland said at a news conference. He joined the department in 2003, left for a time to work with a sheriff's department in Colorado, and returned to the Joplin department in 2013. He was promoted to corporal in 2016.
Another officer was hospitalized in critical condition and a third was in serious condition. Their names have not been released.
The suspected shooter, who died in the exchange of gunfire with police, was identified as 40-year-old Anthony Felix. No further information about Felix was released.
An emotional Mayor Ryan Stanley urged Joplin's 50,000 residents to come together behind the slain and injured officers and their families.
“Please be present, show up, engage, and let the nation and world see, just like after our tornado, how we respond to tragedy as a community. We know how to pull together in love," Stanley said.
An EF-5 tornado tore through Joplin on May 22, 2011, destroying hundreds of homes, leveling a hospital, and killing about 160 people, and the community came together to recover and rebuild.
Authorities said more information about the shooting was expected to be released later Wednesday, but Stanley said it began as a “routine" case.
“It makes you really try to appreciate, try to respect, try to understand what our brave men and women have to do every day as they respond to the normal, and then not knowing what will happen," Stanley said.
The officers responded to a disturbance about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday outside a store at the Northpark Crossing shopping center.
Rowland said officers were trying to take the suspect into custody when he shot two of them, then stole a police car and fled. He fired shots at police vehicles pursuing him, striking one vehicle as the bullet narrowly missed an officer, Rowland said.
The suspect wrecked the police car and fled on foot. Officers chased him to a street near an apartment complex and residential area in central Joplin, where another officer and the suspect were shot. Police have not specified which officer shot Felix.
“This was a violent and unwarranted attack on our officers, and is indicative of the rise in violence against law enforcement officers we are witnessing nationwide, and it has to stop,” Rowland said. “We are a large family at the Joplin Police Department, a very large extended family, and today we are hurting."
Assistant Police Chief Brian Lewis said another scene was involved in the investigation, but he did not provide additional details.
Kim Jenkins, who lives near where the third officer and the suspect were shot, said she saw a man with a gun behind a fence across the street from her home, The Joplin Globe reported.
She said the officer drove down the street and stopped in front of a van the suspect was hiding behind. That’s when the suspect fired at the officer, apparently shooting him through the windshield of his patrol car.
“I don’t think he even had time to get out when the guy started shooting,” Jenkins said.
Several other officers arrived and exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was hit by gunfire, she said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is assisting with the investigation.
