Police said he sped off from the officer but was later arrested and given a summons for “interfering with a police officer by flight”.
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Our thoughts and prayers are with Trooper Ponder’s family and fellow officers. Thomas said there are numerous vacant summer homes in the area.
At that point, Thomas said, Shanks was facing only minor traffic offenses. The suspect abruptly stopped at mile marker 49, causing Ponder’s auto to rear-end the vehicle, according to KSP. An SRT Trooper fired his weapon striking Johnson-Shanks.
Police say Johnson-Shanks was armed with a handgun but ignored several commands to drop the weapon, according to Fox News.
“One woman was cooperative, one wasn’t”, he added.
Thomas said he was not sure what initiated the traffic stop.
Thomas did not specify what actions the woman took that led to her arrest.
Visitation for Ponder is Thursday from 1 p.m.to 8 p.m.at Stithton Baptist Church in Radcliff, Kentucky.
Interstate 24 was shut down from mile markers 45 to 56 while investigators collected evidence but had been reopened by Monday afternoon, police said.
As media outlets dug into the suspect’s history, reports surfaced that he lives near Ferguson, Mo., and took part in the protests and riots that followed Michael Brown’s death previous year . Several agencies from across western Kentucky and Tennessee aided in the search.
Johnson-Shanks was found early on Monday hiding in a wooded area. He died at a medical center in Princeton, Kentucky.
Flags at the Mayfield state police post where Ponder was stationed were fluttering at half-staff on Monday afternoon.
Ponder had been on the job for less than a year, having recently graduated from the state police training academy, taking a position with the Kentucky State Police in January.
“A mother and a father lost a son, and a sister lost a brother, and friends lost a great friend”, Kentucky State Police Trooper Jeff Gregory told WAVE 3 News. He was responding to a reckless driving complaint when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a tractor-trailor truck. After a pursuit of some 10 miles, the chase ended, and Ponder was shot to death in his police vehicle .
As Trooper Ponder’s former football and track and field coach at North Hardin High School, Webb still remembers Ponder more than a decade after his graduation.
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Police believe Johnson-Shanks killed 31-year-old trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder.
