Missouri Cop Shot During Traffic Stop

According to a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Missouri police officer was shot in the neck during a traffic stop in Ballwin, a suburb of the city of St. Louis. He was reportedly taken to a nearby hospital, and his condition is unknown. The shooting comes just a day following the killing of five police officers in Dallas on Thursday, who were fatally shot in a series of sniper attacks at an anti-police brutality protest.

That's not to say there's any indication whatsoever the incidents are linked or related, to be clear ― very little is yet known about either shooting, with one of the Dallas suspects dead and three more in custody, and the suspect in Friday's shooting in Ballwin reportedly also having been captured. Suffice to say, you'll probably hear a lot more about the former case and something more about the latter, and that'll go a ways toward answering what precisely happened and why.

But regardless of motivations or circumstances, the past couple of days have put the perils of policing into a rather glaring light. Beyond the five officers who were killed in Dallas, seven more were injured. According to the St. Louis County Police Department's Twitter feed, a weapon was also recovered.

It's worth noting that policing remains a far safer profession in the modern era than it's historically been ― in the 1970s, in particular, things were far worse than they've been lately, just in terms of the raw numbers. In fact, 2015 was a very safe year for police officers, relatively speaking, with 39 of them being fatally shot nationwide.

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, however, 2016 is on pace to exceed that figure. By their count, there had already been 21 officers slain by intentional gunfire before the events in Dallas on Thursday. Adding those intentional gun fatalities swells the number to 26, and with the condition of the Ballwin officer still unknown, there's a risk it'll tick even higher, and the year is just into its seventh month. In other words, it's not the bad old days, but it's still a dangerous job.

According to the New York Daily News, the officer in question was shot while walking back to his patrol car after issuing a speeding ticket. Neither the identity of the suspect nor the officer have been released as of yet, and there hasn't been any information made public regarding motive.