Officer Blake Curtis Snyder was 33 and a four-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department when he was killed in Green Park, Missouri, shortly after 5:00 a.m. on October 6, 2016. He had responded to a disturbance on the 10700 block of Arno Drive after a report of a young man banging on a residence’s front door. Approaching a vehicle outside the home, Snyder ordered the occupant to show his hands; the man instead produced a 9mm pistol and fired a single point-blank shot that struck Snyder in the chin and proved immediately fatal.

A second officer who arrived moments later exchanged fire, critically wounding the shooter and enabling officers to take him into custody. The shooter, 18-year-old Trenton Forster, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. At trial his defense argued a manic episode complicated by drug use and bipolar disorder had impaired his ability to form intent, while prosecutors presented evidence of anti-police statements and a desire for confrontation. In February 2019 a St. Louis County jury convicted Forster of first-degree murder; in April 2019 he received life without parole. Snyder left behind a wife and their young son; his widow addressed the court at sentencing and offered forgiveness.

Did anyone in Green Park see the disturbance or the vehicle on Arno Drive that morning?