“Missouri Officer Fatally Shot and Another Seriously Wounded During Manhunt for Suspect”

A trag­ic inci­dent occurred in Her­mann, Mis­souri, where a police offi­cer was fatal­ly shot and anoth­er offi­cer was seri­ous­ly wound­ed in an overnight shooting.

The Mis­souri High­way Patrol announced on Mon­day that Detec­tive Sgt. Mason Grif­fith with the Her­mann Police Depart­ment suc­cumbed to his injuries at a hos­pi­tal after being shot at a con­ve­nience store in the small town around 9:30 p.m. on Sun­day. The high­way patrol report­ed that a sec­ond Her­mann offi­cer who was shot remains hos­pi­tal­ized in seri­ous condition.

The details of what led to the shoot­ing have not been released yet. The author­i­ties have not con­firmed whether offi­cers returned fire. The high­way patrol iden­ti­fied the shoot­ing sus­pect as 35-year-old Ken­neth Lee Simp­son of Eure­ka, Mis­souri, and police were involved in an appar­ent man­hunt near a house in Her­mann along High­way 19, not far from the con­ve­nience store where the shoot­ing happened.

Police sur­round­ed the home and yelled at the alleged gun­man to come out­side. Offi­cers ear­li­er had searched near a motel in Her­mann where Simp­son and his girl­friend may have rent­ed a room on Sunday. 

Online Mis­souri court records show Simp­son faced pre­vi­ous crim­i­nal charges involv­ing drugs, weapons offens­es, assault, and prop­er­ty dam­age. A St. Louis Coun­ty judge issued a war­rant for his arrest in August when Simp­son failed to appear in court in a drug pos­ses­sion case.

Her­mann, locat­ed about 40 miles west of St. Louis, is the coun­ty seat of Gas­conade Coun­ty and has a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,100. Mis­souri Gov­er­nor Mike Par­son offered his con­do­lences to the slain offi­cer’s fam­i­ly, say­ing that Detec­tive Sergeant Mason Grif­fith will nev­er be for­got­ten, and Mis­souri will always be grateful.