Missouri police officer 'ambushed' during traffic stop; comes day after Dallas police attack

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A St. Louis-area police officer was "ambushed" during a traffic stop Friday morning, police said. The cop was walking back to his patrol car after ticketing a driver for speeding in Ballwin, a suburb of St. Louis. The driver, later identified by prosecutors as Antonio Taylor, 31, got out of his pulled-over car, shot the officer at least once in the neck and fled, police said. The Ballwin officer was rushed to a local hospital in critical but stable condition, Ballwin Chief Kevin Scott said Friday evening in a Facebook video. He said the officer was "fighting for his life" and surrounded by his family.

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The chief said the officer "had no chance at all" to pull out his service weapon and was "completely helpless" against his attacker. He declined to speculate on a motive for the attack despite the fact it came the day after police in Dallas said a man targeting white police officers killed five cops and wounded seven others at a protest event. The unidentified wounded officer, who is serving in his ninth year as an officer, is white. A woman who lives near the scene told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she got a towel and applied it to the policeman's neck until a nurse arrived from somewhere and did

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The St. Louis County Police Department said detectives recovered the weapon and are continuing to investigate the shooting. Chief Jon Belmar said Taylor was on probation for a weapons violation in St. Louis and freed on parole in March 2015 in California after a prison term for a felon in possession of a firearm. "Make no mistake: We believe during this investigation that Ballwin officer was ambushed, period," Belmar said. Taylor now faces three felony charges of assault of a police officer, armed criminal action and a felon in possession, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch said. Taylor was booked into jail on a $500,000 cash bond ahead of an arraignment expected Monday. Ballwin is about 20 miles from Ferguson, where the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in 2014 set off waves of protests, largely organized by activist group Black Lives Matter.