On the afternoon of March 8, 2022, Joplin officers responded to a disturbance involving an armed individual near a shopping center in the 400 block of Geneva Avenue. Corporal Benjamin Lee Cooper, 46, a veteran officer and former U.S. Army servicemember, was among the first on scene. During an attempt to detain the suspect, identified as 40-year-old Anthony R. Felix, Felix produced a firearm and opened fire. Cooper and Officer Jake Reed were both struck during the initial exchange.

Felix then stole a police cruiser and fled; the vehicle was later found wrecked. Officers tracked him about a mile away to Ninth Street and Connecticut Avenue, where Felix fired on a third officer, Rick Hirshey, inside a patrol vehicle. Captain William Davis engaged and fatally shot Felix during that confrontation. Corporal Cooper was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead; Officer Reed also died of his injuries days later. Cooper is survived by a wife and two daughters.