La. trooper shot during traffic stop

​BELL CITY, La. — A Louisiana State Police trooper has been critically injured after he was shot in the head while making a traffic stop Sunday in Calcasieu Parish.

Col. Mike Edmonson, the head of state police, said the trooper was conducting a traffic stop in the Lake Charles area. The driver had run his pickup truck into a ditch after being reported as driving erratically, state police said.

Edmonson said at some point during the stop, the driver shot the trooper. Passing motorists were able to detain the suspect until troopers were able to place him under arrest, he said.

“As I understand it, they rendered aid to the trooper, they called for help using the trooper’s radio, and they detained the suspect,” said Sgt. James Anderson, southwest Louisiana spokesman for state police.

He said the officer was in critical but stable condition Sunday evening, and the man accused of shooting him was also in a hospital.

“He struggled with the guys who came to assist — had some scrapes on him and so on,” Anderson said.

Neither the officer’s nor the arrested man’s name or age was immediately released.

Anderson said he hasn’t been told what charges the driver faces. “Customarily, attempted murder of a police officer would be a charge that would fit.”

Calcasieu Parish, in southwestern Louisiana, borders Texas.

The incident comes just a day after two Troy, N.Y., police officers were shot Saturday while investigating an attempted carjacking and three days since a Brevard County, Fla., sheriff's deputy was critically injured Thursday night in what was described as an ambush during a prostitution bust.