BREAKING: Kentucky Police Shoot and Kill Man Accused of Murdering Kentucky State Trooper

by Warner Todd Huston | September 14, 2015 10:49 am

Police in Kentucky were honing in on the man accused of shooting and killing a Kentucky State Trooper but today the man was taken out by police in a shoot out that occurred only about a half hour ago.

Joseph Thomas Johnson-Shanks was being pursued for killing Kentucky State Police Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder. But now, Johnson-Shanks is also dead[1].

Authorities said 25-year-old Joseph Thomas Johnson-Shanks, of Missouri, was located in a remote rural area near I-24 around 7 a.m., following an all-night manhunt. Johnson-Shanks was armed with a handgun and did not comply with several commands to drop his weapon, according to Sgt. Mike Webb.

“That gave the trooper closest to him no choice but to fire his agency-issued weapon, striking him multiple times,” Webb said.

Johnson-Shanks was arrested while police waited for EMS at the scene and he died from his injuries at a local hospital at 8:23 a.m. Webb said he wasn’t aware of any statements Johnson-Shanks may have made prior to being shot.

A statement released early Monday said that Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder, 31, was pronounced dead at a Princeton, Ky., hospital after being shot multiple times late Sunday night. Ponder had been a state trooper since January of this year.

The statement said that Ponder was conducting a traffic stop on the westbound side of Interstate 24 in the western part of the state at about 10:20 p.m. local time. The statement said that the driver who was being stopped took off from the scene, with Ponder pursuing him for approximately nine miles.

Another one bites the dust.