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Children on their way to school this morning in East St. Louis made a gruesome discovery: a dead body laying in an open field. East St. Louis Police say the 52-year-old male victim was found shot to death around 7am near North 28th Street and Ohio Avenue.

The victim was reported missing by his family. Police are not releasing his identity but are treating the man's death as a homicide. 

Two St. Louis Police officers are in the hospital after being shot Wednesday night while answering a home alarm call in Baden. The officers had been called to a boarded up home in the 900 block of Elias Avenue about 11 p.m.

Police say a man at the home fired shots at the officers without warning.

The officers returned fire, striking the suspect several times. He's in critical condition at St. Louis University Hospital.

Both officers were taken to Barnes Hospital. A 31 year old female officer was shot in the foot. A 26 year old male officer was shot in the back. Both are expected to recover.

One man is in custody, two others are still at large after a rolling gun battle that ended in a crash in downtown St. Louis Wednesday afternoon.

Police believe the incident started about 4:30 p.m. at North Kingshighway and Natural Bridge Avenue when two men in a burgundy Ford Fusion fired shots at another car.

A short time later, police were called to North Broadway and Pine after shots were reported in the area. They arrived to find a silver car that had crashed, and bullet holes in the window of a nearby job placement center.

The 25 year old man who'd been driving the silver car was arrested. Police are still looking for the men in the burgundy Ford.

The man who was shot by a woman while strangling her sister during a home invasion, has been charged.

Police say Joshua Jewell forced his way into a Highland apartment on Sunday. Once in side Jewell allegedly attacked the two sisters living there. During the attack on sister said she thought the man was going to kill her sibling. She grabbed her gun and fired two shots, with the second one hitting Jewell in the back.

Jewell continues to recover at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Two Highland, Illinois sisters are safe after one of them shot an attacking intruder. It happened about 3:30 Sunday morning at the Senior Plaza Apartments on Eagle Way Drive.

Fifty-five year old Debbie Keeny told police that she'd stepped outside for a smoke and when she turned to go back inside, a man forced his way into her apartment. She says he pushed her to the floor and then attacked her sister, 47 year old Donna Carlyle. The man reportedly choked Carlyle and demanded money.

Keeny says she grabbed her derringer pistol and warned the man that she'd shoot if he didn't let go of her sister. The man didn't stop, so she fired a warning shot. When he still didn't let go, she shot him in the back.

Police say the 33 year old suspect, a man from Troy, Illinois, is in critical condition with two gunshot wounds.

Police believe robbery was the motive, since several of the sister's neighbors at the Senior Plaza Apartments report hearing someone jiggle their doorknobs shortly before the attack.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Gunfire wounded four people on New Orleans' famed Bourbon Street as a costumed crowd partied amid the countdown to Mardi Gras, sending people running, police and bystanders said. Four shots rang out rapidly Saturday night, followed by screams as some in the crowd staggered into one another and a nearby wall, video taken by a bystander and released by police showed. Authorities said in an email Sunday that an argument involving one of the victims led to the shooting. They described the video - released early Sunday - as showing two men leaving the argument and returning with a third before the gunfire erupted. No arrests were immediately reported, and police said they were seeking the three men who fled. The wounded were two males and two females, New Orleans Police spokesman Frank B. Robertson said. One male victim was in guarded condition Sunday with shots to the abdomen, thigh and pelvis, Robertson said. The second male was shot in the buttocks, one female was shot on the chin and right foot, and the second female was shot on the toe, according to Robertson's statement. Police had said late Saturday that the most severely wounded man was undergoing surgery while the others were stable. None was identified by age or name. The shooting came on the last weekend of partying before Mardi Gras, the Fat Tuesday celebration that is the signature tourist event of the year in New Orleans. And for thousands, the partying continued despite the shooting. New Orleans has been plagued for years by violent crime, including gun violence that has soared since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. In 2011, sixteen people were shot and at least two killed in Halloween shootings in New Orleans. One of those killed - a 25-year-old local resident - was shot near the famous Chris Owens nightclub, about a block away from Saturday's incident. Police placed the Saturday shooting in the 400 block of Bourbon Street. Patrick Clay, 21, a Louisiana State University student, told The Times-Picayune that he was standing on the corner of Bourbon Street on Saturday night when suddenly he saw a crowd running and people screaming that there had been a shooting. "Everyone immediately started running and the cops immediately started running toward where people were running from," Clay said. "I was with a group of about seven people and at that point, we all just kind of grasped hands and made our way through the crowd as soon as possible." Some bartenders and revelers said the block of Bourbon Street where the shooting occurred was closed for a time while detectives investigated, but partying resumed hours later across that stretch. Julia Rosenthal, a 19-year-old from Westchester, N.Y., had mixed feelings about hanging out in the French Quarter after the shooting. "It's not an OK thing that happened, and it's definitely scary. But I'm not going to let it affect my night," she said. Peter Manabani, an employee at the Rat's Hole bar, said police had shut down a whole Bourbon Street block for an hour to investigate but allowed people to return to the area later. Hours later on Sunday, there was little evidence that a shooting had occurred. Overnight revelers were in full party mode, packing the block amid a heavy police presence. Laura Gonzalez, 21, of Baytown, Texas, said it was her first Mardi Gras and she spent some time in the Fat Catz bar nearby as police investigated. She said the bar locked its doors quickly after the shots rang out and wouldn't let anyone in or out while police went to the scene. Asked if it was frightening, she responded: "Not really. We were just locked in a bar and we weren't going to let this one incident wreck our party." Parades rolled all day Saturday but none on Bourbon Street because the streets are too narrow. One of the biggest Mardi Gras parades, the Krewe of Endymion, rolled down a major thoroughfare and just skirted Bourbon Street a few hours before the shooting. Typically, once the parades end, partygoers head to the French Quarter.

Police continue to search for a man who allegedly killed a woman found in his O'Fallon, Missouri home on Tuesday night.

Police say Terry Culberson shot 55-year-old Dorothy Hall several times. Officers responded to the house at 5:15 PM after being called to check in on the woman. That is where they found her body. During their investigation, police learned that Culberson had made threats against Hall and her family on Monday.

Culberson has a previous conviction for assault with intent to kill and should be considered armed and dangerous.