Breaking News
Southeast Texas deputy shot dead; standoff ensues
BAYTOWN, Texas (AP) — Deputies and troopers were in a standoff with a former police officer Monday evening at a Southeast Texas mobile home, where a deputy was shot earlier in the day.
Authorities said negotiators had tried to establish contact with the man without success.
“They are taking every precaution they need to,” Baytown police spokeswoman Patti Jett said.
“Obviously, we don’t want to have another loss,” she added. “The loss of an officer is very traumatic for a police department. We like all of our guys, and we want them to be as safe as they can.”
Deputies went to the Tower Terrace mobile home park about 9:30 a.m. Monday after a meter reader sent to shut off water service to a mobile home fled when a woman came out and opened fire. The officers arrested Pamela Leggett, but one deputy was fatally shot in the head when he went into the trailer.
Leggett was charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest, said Cheryl Lieck, Chambers County district attorney.
The suspected gunman is a former police officer with the Kenefick Police Department, Jett said.
Kenefick is a town of about 700 residents 20 miles north of the mobile home park and 40 miles northeast of Houston.
The shooting scene is 30 miles east of Houston.
Thirty-one-year-old Shane Detwiler had been with the Chambers County Sheriff’s Department for just two months after six years with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Jett said. He was a highly decorated Iraq war veteran and was the married father of three young children, she said.
Neighbor Randy Young told the Houston Chronicle for its online edition that he awoke to gunfire Monday morning. He and more than a dozen neighbors hustled out of the mobile home park after authorities arrived.
Young said the neighbor involved in the standoff collects weapons and has shown him explosives.
“It’s a nice place, maybe a fistfight every now and then,” neighbor Tracy Daw told the Chronicle of Tower Terrace. “But nothing like this.”
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