A felon who had been on the run for about eight months was shot and killed by Georgia State Patrol troopers on I-75 South in Bartow County on Thursday, authorities said.
One of the troopers, who was shot in his vest by 27-year-old Kenneth Martin Anderson, has been released from the hospital, the GBI said in a news release. His injuries consisted of blunt force trauma. The other troopers were not injured.
The trooper was identified Tuesday as Brandon Howerton, according to the GBI.
A routine traffic stop on a car with a West Virginia temporary tag led to the shooting.
Troopers put the passenger, identified as Anderson, in handcuffs after finding drugs, guns and cash in the car, GSP Capt. Mark Perry said. He was wanted for a parole violation.
"He's handcuffed behind his back. Apparently he had a weapon behind his back,” Perry said. “As he comes out, the trooper was standing a couple of feet from him. He turns with his hands behind him and shoots the trooper in the abdomen. In the vest."
Anderson fired three times before two troopers returned fire, hitting him multiple times, the GBI said. He later died at the Cartersville Hospital.
The traffic stop happened because the woman who was driving was going too slow in the fast lane.
“That's what we call the ‘Slowpoke Law,’” Perry said. “So that's what caused the traffic stop.”
At first, the man gave troopers a fake name. So they used a portable fingerprint scanner to learn his true identity and that he had been on the run for about eight months.
The driver, identified as Courtney Shay Caudill by the GBI, is being held at the Bartow County Jail. Charges include cocaine trafficking, possession of methamphetamine by ingestion and impeding the flow of traffic, according to Bartow sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Rogers.
The incident closed the U.S. 411 exit and one right lane for several hours.
The GBI will be handling the investigation.
It was the second of three officer-involved shootings in Georgia on the day. The first was reported Thursday morning in Monroe, and the third was in Terrell County Thursday night.
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Officer-involved shootings in Georgia this year are on track to pass the 97 recorded in 2017, according to the GBI. The Bartow County shooting is the 74th such investigation the agency has opened in 2018.
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