Trooper death highlights dangers of policing

By Andria Simmons and Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A 30-year-old Atlanta man accused of gunning down a state trooper on Monday night had just been released from the Fulton County jail two weeks ago and jail records show it was not the first time he had tried to flee from police.

Trooper First Class Chadwick LeCroy could not have known that the driver of a 2007 Mazda had an extensive rap sheet when he attempted to pull over the vehicle on Bolton Road for a broken taillight. Fulton County Jail records show Gregory Favors had been in and out of jail 18 times. After his 19th arrest, he was charged Tuesday afternoon with murder and aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer for allegedly killing LeCroy with one shot to his neck.

On Wednesday, Favors waived his first-appearance hearing at the Fulton jail.

The shooting happened shortly after Favors tried to flee and then crashed his car into a mailbox. LeCroy, 38 and a married father of two sons, is the eighth Georgia law enforcement officer to be killed in the line of duty in 2010, a year that has been particularly deadly for those behind the badge.

Nationally, the number of officers killed while doing their jobs rose 37 percent this year, to 160 from 117 in 2009, according to numbers compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks police deaths. In Albany on Tuesday, funeral services were held for Dougherty County officer Cliff Rouse, who was shot to death last week while investigating a convenience store robbery.

Dale Mann, director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth, Ga., said the law enforcement community is frustrated with the weak punishment being doled out for serious crimes and the fact that cop-killers rarely get the death penalty.

"But by the grace of God, it could've been me and a hundred others," Mann said. "People are shooting police officers like it's nothing. One of the reasons is because they're not getting the death penalty for doing it. If they do, it'll be 30 years [before execution] and you'll have to remind the public what it's about."

Favors had been arrested previously for charges ranging from possession of cocaine and reckless driving to obstruction of a law enforcement officer, attempting to break into a vehicle and trying to flee from police. Further details on the offenses and Favor's subsequent sentencing were not immediately available Tuesday.

Tracy Flanagan, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, said Favors was last arrested Dec. 11. He was released from custody three days later on a signature bond, meaning he put up no bail money.

Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, whose agency is leading the case, said an autopsy showed LeCroy was hit only once, although Favors fired three shots.

LeCroy was a member of a special street crime suppression unit and was at the intersection of Hightower Road and Saint Paul Avenue, an area rife with drugs and prostitution, when he was shot. Officers from the Atlanta Police Department who had worked alongside LeCroy stopped by the scene Tuesday and surveyed it with somber faces.

The flags at the Georgia Department of Public Safety and patrol posts were lowered to half-staff in honor of LeCroy. He is the first Georgia State Patrol trooper to be shot and killed since 1975 and the 27th trooper to die in the line of duty since the GSP was organized in 1937.

In Marietta and North Georgia, his family mourned.

"He was a good man and he loved his work," said Larry LeCroy, the trooper's uncle, his eyes welling with tears as he stood in the living room of his Marietta home.,

LeCroy's stepfather, Sam Houston, who was stranded by snow in the North Georgia town of Cherry Log early Tuesday, said a first image of his stepson is that of a giddy new state trooper standing next to his new Dodge Charger patrol car.

“He loved his job. He was working his dream and we were all so happy for him,” Houston said.

Houston said his wife Donna, LeCroy’s mother, was holding up well, but that the slain trooper’s 21-year-old son was having a more difficult time dealing with his father’s death.

“He seems to be taking it the hardest,” Houston said of Bret LeCroy.

LeCroy’s other son is Chase, 10. LeCroy lived with his wife, Keisha and both sons in Marietta.

Houston, a retired Symrna police captain, said he has known LeCroy since he was a young boy, even before Houston married Donna LeCroy. Houston said LeCroy was always interested in his stepfather’s police stories.

“He was always around me,” Houston said. “I would have pieces of uniforms that would disappear occasionally and [I] would find Chad had them.”

LeCroy completed his State Patrol training in August 2008 and received the “top gun” award for scoring the highest in his class in firearms testing.

Upon graduation, every trooper is assigned a car and LeCroy was given a new tan Charger with the number 744, LeCroy’s trooper number, on it.

“We have a photo of him leaning on his car with a huge smile on his face.” Houston said. “That smile on his face was like a kid at Christmas.”

The family didn’t see LeCroy this Christmas because he was working. But his Thanksgiving visit to North Georgia was much longer than normal.

“On Thanksgiving, the whole family was here, kids and grandkids. We had a houseful,” Houston said. “Chad seemed reluctant to leave. There was a fire in the fire place and he stayed and stayed and stayed until 1 in the morning.”

Houston said that was the last time he saw LeCroy.

Last year's toll of 117 officers killed nationwide was a 50-year low that encouraged police groups. But this year's total is more the norm than an anomaly: The number of police deaths has topped 160 five times since 2000, including 240 in 2001. The annual toll routinely topped 200 in the 1970s and before that in the 1920s.

Steps away from where LeCroy fell mortally wounded, Sabrina McNeal looked out toward the street from her front porch. She said she is so accustomed to hearing gunshots in the neighborhood that she thought little of the noise on Monday night until her grandson woke her. She went outside in time to see the trooper still sprawled on the ground while some first responders tending to him.

"You can't stop crime," McNeal said with resignation. "It's just sad that he died. I feel sorry for the brother who shot him and I feel sorry for the officer, too."

Staff writer Christian Boone and the Associated Press contributed to this article.