Gregory Favors is charged in the murder of Chadwick LeCroy, 38, who was shot in the neck Monday night after trying to stop Favors' 2007 Mazda for having a broken headlight, said Vernon Keenan, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Favors was driving in a busy corridor in northwest Atlanta when authorities say LeCroy tried to make the routine traffic stop. Favors sped away, and less than two minutes later crashed his car on an embankment, with the driver's door wedged into a brick mailbox, Keenan said.
When LeCroy approached Favors' car, video footage showed that Favors suddenly opened the passenger door and fired three rounds, striking LeCroy once in the neck, Keenan said. He then drove off in LeCroy's squad car, ditched it a few blocks later to take off by foot, and was arrested within several hours, authorities said.
``This is just a tragic series of events,'' Keenan said. ``The trooper would have had no reason to believe this was anything but a traffic stop.''
Favors shook his head Tuesday when a TV reporter asked whether he shot the policeman.
The suspect has been arrested 19 times and has three felony convictions the GBI said.
His first arrest came on exactly eleven years ago Tuesday. The most recent arrest was on Dec. 11, when he was charged with attempting to break into a car, possession of cocaine and obstruction of a law enforcement officer, according to Fulton County Jail records. He was released three days later.
LeCroy turned to a career in law enforcement when the economy tanked in 2008. He previously had worked in construction. His father and step father are retired law enforcement officers. His father worked for the Smyrna Police while his step father retired from the Cobb Police.
LeCroy, who is survived by a wife and two sons, was the first state trooper to be killed by gunfire since 1975 and the 27th trooper to be killed in the line of duty since the patrol was organized in 1937.
