BURLESON, Texas – A man suspected in the shooting of a North Texas police officer during a traffic stop early Wednesday has been arrested, authorities said.
The three occupants of the vehicle involved also are suspected in a carjacking shortly thereafter in which the woman driver was shot dead, police said.
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Jerry Don Elders, 39, is suspected of shooting the police officer three times at about 4:15 a.m. Wednesday in Burleson, Texas, about 13 miles (21 kilometers) south of Fort Worth, Burleson police said on Twitter. The Burleson man already had been wanted on two felony drug offense warrants when the shooting happened, said Burleson Police Chief Billy Cordell.
Elders was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Gainesville, Texas, 62 miles (99 kilometers) north of Fort Worth and on the Oklahoma border, after a police chase and foot pursuit, Cordell said at a news conference. A search continued in the Gainesville area for another person who fled the stolen vehicle, he said. A third person is being questioned “and we'll see where that goes,” Cordell said.
The wounded officer, four-year veteran Joshua Lott, was hospitalized in alert and stable condition, he said.
Elders has been charged in an arrest warrant with aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. Cordell said Elders or a companion then knocked on a door of a vehicle, shot the woman at the wheel dead and stole her vehicle. It was that vehicle from which police later saw Elders and another person fleeing, he said.
The shooting is at least the fourth involving a Texas law enforcement officer in recent weeks.
An Austin police officer was shot and wounded Friday, while a state trooper was shot and wounded during a manhunt for a man accused of opening fire on a cabinet business. And late last month, a state trooper was fatally shot during a traffic stop near Mexia, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Dallas.