Assault suspect shoots self in public view after Cape Girardeau police chase

As police cars whizzed by her home on Whitener Street on Tuesday afternoon, Carroll Powell had no idea what was happening.

Curious, she walked a street over to Dan's Key and Lock Shop to see if the business had picked up any radio traffic on its police scanner. When her friend who works at the shop reported no scanner traffic, the two women noticed a police car slowly passing the store in an alley. Powell figured there had been a wreck and went outside to see what had happened.

Powell asked a woman who lives next door to the shop what was happening, and the woman said there was a police chase that involved a black truck.

"I turned around to walk back to Dan's, and the black truck was in Dan's parking lot," she said. "The man had just gotten out of the truck, pulled out a silver gun and blew his brains out."

What Powell witnessed Tuesday afternoon was the tail end of an intense police chase of a man suspected of assaulting a woman along a Cape Girardeau trail.

Cape Girardeau emergency responders work on a victim of a self-inflicted gun shot wound outside Dan's Key and Lock Tuesday afternoon, March 6, 2012. Police say the man is a suspect in a Sunday assault along Cape LaCroix Recreational Trail. (Laura Simon)

The man, who had yet to be identified early Tuesday evening, was in serious condition at Saint Francis Medical Center, police said. Assistant chief Roger Fields said the man is from Decatur, Ill.

Police responded about 1 p.m. to West End Apartments, 45 S. West End Blvd., after getting a tip that a man fitting the suspect's description was staying there. The license plates on the suspect's black Mazda pickup truck matched one given by the assault victim Sunday after she said he assaulted her near the Cape LaCroix Recreational Trail, according to police spokesman Jason Selzer.

When police attempted to speak to the man and a woman in a truck at the apartment complex, he refused and police broke out the window.

The man then fled and rammed a police car before leading police on a low-speed chase, Selzer said. Police chased him into an alley near Independence Street where they laid stop-sticks down and flattened the truck's tires.

The suspect went into the parking lot of Dan's Key and Lock Shop where he exited his truck and pointed a gun at an officer, who rammed the suspect with his police cruiser, Selzer said.

Once on the ground, the man shot himself in the head, Selzer said.

An ambulance transported the man to a hospital.

"It's serious," Selzer said of the man's medical condition.

The man was in his late 40s or early 50s, Selzer said.

In Sunday's alleged assault, a 49-year-old woman was pushed into the woods at gunpoint south of the Osage Centre around 4:30 p.m. by a man who parked near her car in a lot at Lexington Avenue and followed her onto the trail. The man walked up behind the woman, pointed a silver handgun at her and threatened her. The man ran off when another woman nearby entered the woods after hearing the victim's screams, police said. She then escorted the victim, who was not injured, back to her vehicle and left the scene.

Selzer said Tuesday afternoon that he was unsure whether the gun the man used to shoot himself fit the description of the gun the suspect pointed at the woman Sunday. He also said they intended to notify the victim about Tuesday's incident.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department's main objective Tuesday was to catch the suspect, Selzer said.

"It was very important" to catch him, Selzer said. "He already displayed a willingness to display a handgun and assault someone."

Selzer said he was not sure of the relationship between the man and the woman in the truck during the chase. She remained inside the truck during the chase and the shooting. She was taken to the police station, he said. She is not thought at this time by police to be otherwise involved.

Steve Fuemmeler was sitting on his porch at his home when he saw and heard lights and sirens on Caruthers Avenue. He went across the street to a neighbor's home to see what was happening. The home's backyard faces the alley where police pursued the man.

"The police were trying to put out those strips, and the guy almost ran them over," Fuemmeler said.

Staff and students at Central Junior High School, on the east side of Caruthers Avenue, could see police cars near where the chase ended and the school was placed on lockdown for around 15 minutes, principal Carla Fee said. Everyone inside the school remained calm and students were told there was an incident happening nearby off-campus but that they were safe and no dangerous people were in the building, she said.

psullivan@semissourian.com

388-3635

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

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