The truck Gary David Green drove to McCamey the night law enforcement officials say he shot and killed an Upton County sheriff’s deputy had been reported stolen out of Ector County earlier that afternoon.
The Ector County Sheriff’s Department said it was investigating the auto theft, reported at 3:13 p.m. Oct. 2 in the 5500 block of Meteor Crater Road in West Odessa. The Texas Rangers are heading the shooting investigation, but investigators deemed they did not need to take over the auto theft investigation, said Sgt. Santos Carrasco, a spokesman for the agency through the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The revelation that Green was driving a reportedly stolen vehicle offered new context in what remains a mostly incomplete picture of the shooting.
The official account so far left many questions: Deputies Billy “Bubba” Kennedy and Thomas Stiles responded to a Stripes Convenience Store at about 11:15 p.m. Oct. 2. There, they encounted Green, a 50 year-old convicted felon who had been sentenced to prison in 2007 for an aggravated assault. Gunfire ensued. Carrasco said Monday this happened outside. Kennedy was injured by gunfire and died at the scene. Green was critically injured.
Carrasco said there would be no more information released from the preliminary investigation on Monday. The truck Green was driving is registered to Odessan Mike Eaves, who runs Cherokee Truck Services from his home on Cessna Avenue. Eaves did not respond to inquiries from the Odessa American.
McCamey, a town of 1,844 people, reeled at the loss of Kennedy, a 37-year-old deputy who had served as a deputy for 14 total years and who had graduated from high school in Iraan. He was married and the father of two sons.
“Bubba was one of us,” Upton County Sheriff Dan Brown, at a memorial last week. “We’re a small department, and we’re all really close. He was not just an officer — he was our friend, a son, a father and a brother.”
Now Upton County prepares for Kennedy’s funeral.
Sunday night, the U.S. Honor Flag arrived at Midland International Airport, where the Midland Police Department’s received it with a ceremony. From there, the flag headed to Rankin for Kennedy’s funeral. The service is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the Park Building in Rankin. Burial will follow at Rankin Cemetery.
Meanwhile, Green continued to recover at Medical Center Hospital in Odessa, where he was being held on a $1 million bond out of Upton County and a capital murder charge. Officers with the DPS, assisted in some instances by officers with the Odessa Police Department, guarded him. On Monday, Green had been reportedly upgraded from critical to fair condition — talking and conscious.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/crime_justi...9bb30f31a.html
Bookmarks