ST. LOUIS — A police officer on Wednesday morning shot a man who ran at him with a "butcher-style" knife, police said. The man is expected to survive.
Leslie Hopkins, 72, survived the shooting and was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.Ìý
Police said a man called 911 around 7 a.m. saying someone had pulled a knife on him.
Officers responded to the 5500 block of Wells Avenue, due north of Forest Park and about a block south of Martin Luther King Drive. There, they foundÌýa man in his late 60s or early 70s with a large butcher-style knife, police said.
Officers ordered the man to drop the knife, but he instead approached them, holding the knife "in a threatening manner," police said.
The officers backed up, police said. But then the man started running toward them, and one officer fired at him.
The officer fired one shot and hit the man in the groin area, said Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ police Maj. Janice Bockstruck.
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The officer who fired is 41 and has been on the force about three years.Ìý
No officers were hurt.
Emergency crews took the man to a hospital.ÌýBockstruck said he is "absolutely stable," but did not elaborate on his condition.
The department's Force Investigation Unit, which examines all police shootings, came to the scene too. Officers recovered a knife.
The case will be turned over to the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ Circuit Attorney's Office for review.
Wednesday's shooting scene, in the city's Hamilton Heights neighborhood, is next to the Friendly Village senior living complex. Police wouldn't say if the man had any connection to that complex.
The shooting is the second in five days involving a Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ police officer. On Saturday, Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ police shot 55-year-old Vincent Simmons in the torso after a vehicle fled a traffic stop and crashed in an alley behind the 5000 block of Kingshighway.
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged Simmons with four felonies, including resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a firearm. Police said Simmons remains hospitalized.
Leslie Hopkins, 72, survived the shooting and was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.Ìý
Police shootings in the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ region in 2025
Outside a Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ bar on New Year's Day. Inside a doctor's home in Fenton.
At least nine times in 2025, police across the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ region have shot a suspect.
Four of those shootings were fatal.
Here is a list of Post-Dispatch news articles about this year's police shootings.
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Police found three people dead at a home in the 5100 block of Wells Avenue on Friday morning. Officers also killed a man in a shootout who is …
Eddie Washington, 28, was shot after wrestling with Overland police who confronted him on the parking lot of a Shell gas station.
Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ County police shot and killed Dr. Aleksandr Lanis, 38, when he pulled a gun on them during an arrest at his home, authorities said.
Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ police said an officer shot and injured Leslie Hopkins, 72, when Hopkins ran at police with a knife.
Vincent Lamont Simmons, 55, was shot in an alley after crashing a pickup at the end of a pursuit.
The sheriff said deputies tried to negotiate with 39-year-old Timothy L. Johnston, then fatally shot him when he fired a shot at them.
The 45-year-old man, armed with firearms, had barricaded himself inside a vehicle in the 3900 block of Summertime Drive, police said.
Police shot and injured the boy after they say heÌýled officers on a car chase and drove the car into an officer.Ìý
Kobie Davis, 25, was killed by a Leadington, Missouri, police officer hired to work security for The Wheelhouse at 1000 Spruce Street.
