A suspect was arrested Saturday and will be charged in the fatal shooting of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth. Shannon J. Miles was apprehended at 2:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. EDT), Saturday, police told a news conference, just hours after he allegedly shot and killed Goforth Friday as the uniformed deputy filled the gas tank of his patrol car at a Houston-area Chevron station.
“Miles is in the custody of the Harris County Sherriff’s Office,” Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said during a news conference Saturday afternoon, adding that Miles will be charged with capital murder. “We have not been able to extract any details regarding a motive at this point. … It appears that Deputy Goforth’s killing was unprovoked.”
Hickman said Miles was taken into custody without the aid of his mother, which was previously suggested by various news outlets.
Goforth, 47, visited a Chevron convenience store around 8:30 p.m., local time, and just had finished filling his gas tank when the suspect shot him multiple times in the back and once as he laid on the ground, the department said. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman previously said the shooting was “an unprovoked, execution-style killing of a police officer” and pleaded with the public to come forward with any tips leading to the gunman’s arrest.
Hickman said there was no evidence indicating Goforth had any previous interaction with Miles.
The entire shooting was caught on surveillance camera. The suspect was initially described as a “dark-complected male” in his early 20s wearing a white T-shirt and driving a red Ford Ranger truck.
“It is time for the silent majority in this country to support law enforcement.
There are a few bad apples in every profession. That does not mean there should be open warfare on law enforcement. The vast majority of officers are there to do the right thing, are there because they care about their community and want to make it a safer place,” Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson told a press conference earlier Saturday. “What happened last night is an assault on the very fabric of society.
It is not anything that we can tolerate. It is time to come forward and support law enforcement and condemn this atrocious act. We need to bring this killer to justice.”
