Posted on 05/11/2006 5:38:51 PM PDT by Tennessee_Bob
A deputy with the Roane County Sheriff's Office were shot early Thursday evening. Another individual was shot in the same incident. One person is reported dead.
The shooting happened off Highway 58, on Barnard Narrows Road near Shiloh Baptist Church.
The suspects in the shooting have been identified by police authorities as brothers Rocky and Leon Houston.
Rocky Houston drove himself to Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, where he was treated for a gunshot wound and then transported to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.
Leon Houston is still at large, believed to be on foot, and a manhunt is underway. The search is being focused in the area of the Christopher Cemetery off of Dogtown Road.
A S.W.A.T. team is reportedly staging for the search at Midway High School.
10 News and WBIR.com will have more on this developing story as details become available.
Im sorry to hear this. Prayers for the family and his department..
UPDATE - Roane County: Officer, friend dead in "ambush;" Midway graduation postponed
TERRI LIKENS/Roane Newspapers
A Roane County sheriff's deputy and his friend were shot to death Thursday, triggering a massive manhunt for two brothers.
Deputy Bill Jones, 53, and his friend, Mike Brown, who often accompanied Jones as a police "ride-along," were killed in the police vehicle, according to authorities.
"It appears that they drove right into an ambush," said Sheriff David Haggard.
Haggard said one suspect, 46-year-old Rocky Joe Houston, had been shot and was apprehended at Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge. His injuries were to the hand and hip, Haggard said, and didn't appear to be serious.
Haggard said an uncle had driven him to the hospital.
Also believed to be involved is Houston's brother, Clifford Leon Houston, 47, who Haggard said was dropped off somewhere by the same uncle. The Houston brothers had an ongoing feud with police and were well-known to area law-enforcement agencies.
Haggard said the shooting occurred in the vicinity of Barnard Narrows Road, on a stretch populated by many members of the Houston clan.
Several hundred officers, from FBI to local animal control officers, converged in the South of the River area where the shooting occurred.
They turned Midway High School into a command center, and sent reporters there for a late-night news conference.
Howie Rose, Roane County's emergency management chief, said that because of the search in the woods in the rural area, classes were canceled at all three Midway school Friday.
Graduation ceremonies at Midway had been scheduled for Friday, but where postponed to Saturday because of the invasion. Even that wasn't firm. Officials said if the search continues in the area, graduation could be further delayed.
Among seniors set to graduate is Rocky's daughter.
Haggard said police learned of the shootings through a series of call to the county's Emergency-911 Center - the first call at 6:12 p.m.
A short time later, in a scene all-too-reminiscent of last August's courthouse shooting of a corrections officer, police from all over the region streamed into the county. Two helicopters - courtesy of Knox County - circled the skies.
At Midway, the blue, red, gold and white emergency lights from a sea of police vehicles appeared oddly festive under rainy, night skies. Inside the school, it was another story: Well-armed officers with SWAT gear and bulletproof vests created a more somber mood.
Kingston Police Chief Jim Washam, who was among the many agencies represented there, said he figured about 300 officers were there. Many were put to work at intersections. Anyone who drove between Midway and Kingston ran a gauntlet of several roadblocks and car searches.
Haggard told reporters that bad blood between the Houstons and law enforcement agencies began a few years ago, when one of them got a speeding ticket in Harriman. The close-knit brothers felt they had somehow been wronged, and their appeals, police said, soon turned to threats, missed court dates, warrants and court summons.
In return, the Houstons filed suit and accused many agencies of conspiring against and persecuting them.
They also took their complaints to the media.
Rocky regularly came to the Roane County News with stacks of documents he had filed in court. However, getting to the gist of how he felt he had been wronged was difficult. Both men were easily agitated and clearly frustrated.
Things grew even more tense in 2003, when Rocky lost his security clearance and his job as a security officer for Wackenhut in Oak Ridge. Emotion tinged his voice when he called the Roane County News to report that development.
Washam said the Houstons' encounters went back even further than Haggard noted. In 1991 Washam and another officer arrested Leon. Washam couldn't remember the specifics of the arrest, but said Leon appealed all the way up to the federal level.
In the summer of 2003, a SWAT team was sent to the Houston home to pick up Rocky on outstanding warrants. Police later said then they had heard the Hosutons were well-armed and feared a fight. A police negotiator helped keep things in check.
In another incident a year or so later, Rocky, who was being pursued by police officers, flipped his truck on Hwy. 58.
Rocky and Leon are sons of Clyde Houston, a former Roane County commissioner.
Clyde's wife, Carol Juanita Houston, 66- Rocky and Leon's mother - died April 20. For some who knew the family, her death brought concerns that the two brothers might grow even more distraught.
A few weeks ago, not long after their mother's death, they threatened some forestry officials who were trying to fight a brush fire in the area, Haggard said. Warrants were issued and some were still outstanding Thursday, the sheriff said.
He said Jones, who was patroling near the Houstons' residence, would have been aware of the warrants and would have tried to arrest the Houstons. He said Jones made two passes down Barnard Narrows Road and was ambushed in front of the Houstons' grandparents' house.
In Jones' death, police lost a veteran lawman.
Haggard said Jones had been in law enforcement around 25 years, working for Rockwood and Harriman city police, among other agencies, before joining the sheriff's department a little less than a year ago.
Haggard called Jones "a good person; a kind-hearted person."
"He was all law enforcement," he said.
Haggard said he knew little about Brown, except that the men had been longtime friends
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