According to KSP, Trooper Joseph Ponder stopped a auto on Interstate 24 at mile marker 58 at 10:20 p.m.
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Trooper Corey King tells 14NEWS law enforcement put their lives on the line every day. He died later in the morning at a hospital. Police said she was a passenger in the vehicle stopped by Ponder.
“He is armed and unsafe “, Thomas said. The rounds hit the vehicle and Ponder multiple times.
A spokesman for Kentucky State Police verified the man in the video as Johnson-Shanks. He then fled the scene on foot, according to the police statement. The chase lasted for about nine miles, police say.
“He was trying to help them out, and for an unknown reason, the driver fled”, Jay Thomas said. Relations between the public and police departments have been strained in recent months by cases in which officers used excessive force, sometimes fatally, in arresting suspects.
The authorities asked residents in the area to remain in their homes with the doors and windows locked and part of I-24 was shut down as a manhunt continued into Monday morning.
News that the suspect has died comes after Lyon County Judge Executive Wade White wrote a Facebook update earlier today in which he said the man suspected in Ponder’s death had been arrested.
Ponder, 31, was a native of Rineyville, KY. When police found him, the suspect ended up getting shot and injured.
St. Ann police booked Johnson-Shanks on August . 5, 2014, on an outstanding warrant issued by Bellefontaine Neighbors police. Shanks was lodged in the Caldwell County Jail. “He refused verbal commands from our Troopers to lower his weapon”. They’ve provided little detail so far on events leading up to his death. The other woman in the auto was being cooperative with police.
A cousin and close friend of Johnson-Shanks who declined to provide their names said he worked as a handyman around his neighborhood, fixing cars and mowing grass for his neighbors. He was a Navy vet, a graduate of North Hardin High School and he will most definitely be missed.
Flags at the Mayfield state police post where Ponder was stationed were fluttering at half-staff on Monday afternoon. In January of 2015, the website Heavy reported that Johnson-Shanks won $1,000 from the Missouri Lottery.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, he is the 25th officer to be killed by gunfire since the beginning of the year.
An autopsy for Johnson-Shanks will conducted in Madisonville tomorrow.
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Thomas says the other occupants of the vehicle were detained but not charged.
