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Suspect in Fatal Police Shooting Upset Over Custody Battle

Otis Tyrone McKane was also married after the shooting, before his arrest, NBC News reported

The suspect arrested in the ambush shooting of a San Antonio police detective has said he was angry about a child-custody battle and "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it."

Otis Tyrone McKane was being led by police to the Bexar County Jail late Monday when he told reporters that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and took it out on Detective Benjamin Marconi.

"I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said. He said he wanted to apologize to the family of the slain officer.

Court records also showed that McKane, 31, of San Antonio, was married Monday — after the killing but before his arrest, NBC News reported, based on documents obtained in Bexar County court.

He remained jailed on a $2 million bond after his arrest on a capital murder charge Monday afternoon in the fatal shooting of Marconi. The detective was shot as he sat in his squad car Sunday after making a traffic stop. Authorities have said a gunman walked up to Marconi's driver's-side window and fired.

It was one of several weekend attacks against law enforcement in multiple states.

The San Antonio detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they became the targets of violence. Marconi was writing a traffic ticket.

"I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said.

In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from a hospital Monday.

Law enforcement officials say there's been an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks. Sixty officers, including the San Antonio detective, were shot to death on the job this year, compared with 41 in all of 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared with eight last year, the group said.

Police officers also were shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested those were targeted attacks. All the shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas — the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001.

Chief McManus said McKane was arrested without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped Monday afternoon on an interstate.

Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before the 50-year-old Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked.

"I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said.

McKane married Christian Field, 27, on Monday morning, according to the documents obtained by NBC News. A judge waived Texas' 72-hour waiting period between getting a marriage license and getting married, but it wasn't clear why, NBC News reported.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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