San Antonio police arrest man wanted in killing of officer targeted for ‘the uniform’

The sprawling manhunt for the suspect in the fatal shooting of a San Antonio police officer ended Monday afternoon with the arrest of a man, police announced.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said a SWAT team arrested the suspect, Otis Tyrone McKane, without incident in connection with the killing of Detective Benjamin Marconi, who was slain while writing a traffic ticket in front of police headquarters on Sunday morning.

McKane is “the person we believe is responsible for the cold and calculated murder of Detective Marconi,” McManus said during a briefing late Monday afternoon.

“We are relieved to have taken him into custody without a further loss of life,” McManus said.

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Police said they do not know a motive for Marconi’s death, and McManus declined to say what led authorities to the 31-year-old McKane. During a briefing earlier in the day, McManus said police did not believe the officer’s death was tied to another attack in St. Louis that occurred hours later on Sunday.

“I will say that it is certainly a coincidence, but we’re not going to venture to say that it’s connected,” McManus said.

Police also said Monday that the suspected attacker had briefly visited the department’s headquarters not long before the shooting.

“I don’t know why he was at headquarters,” McManus said. “We have some ideas why we believe he may have been in headquarters, but we’re not quite sure.”

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Officials had released video footage they said showed McKane entering the department’s headquarters in downtown San Antonio.

McManus said he thought the attacker was going after a member of law enforcement rather than specifically targeting Marconi.

“I think the uniform was the target, and anyone, the first person who happened along, was the person that he targeted,” McManus said.

Police had McKane under surveillance for a few hours before they took him into custody, McManus said.

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At the time of his arrest, McKane was driving a car with an unidentified woman and a 2-year-old. McManus said he did not know about the relationship between any of them.

Marconi was one of three officers shot Sunday in attacks that police described as ambushes, a spate of shootings that also wounded police officials in Missouri and Florida. The other two officers – who, like Marconi, were sitting inside their patrol cars when they were shot – are expected to survive.

These shootings occurred four months after eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge were gunned down in separate ambushes just days apart, attacks that added to fears among law enforcement and have helped fuel an increase in the number of officers killed by gunfire this year.

Marconi, 50, had been with the San Antonio police for two decades. In a statement released by police, Marconi’s family asked for privacy so they could “mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend, and last but not least, a peace officer.”

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