A state trooper's dashboard video camera captured his fatal shooting Monday, allegedly at the hands of a man with a lengthy criminal record, according to a GBI affidavit obtained by the AJC.
The video led state and Atlanta investigators to arrest Gregory Favors, 30, a man with an 11-year criminal record but who had no previous arrests for violent behavior.
According to court records obtained by the AJC Wednesday, Favors was out of jail on $19,000 bond following a Dec. 10 arrest, for which he had been charged with several nonviolent felony offenses. He missed a hearing related to that arrest on Monday morning, the same day he allegedly gunned down LeCroy.
According to the affidavit, written by GBI agent A.B. Johnston, the video shows that Favors initially stopped when trooper First Class Chadwick LeCroy pulled behind him with his blue lights on but then sped away as LeCroy approached the Mazda 6.
According to the affidavit, which was used to secure a search warrant, the ensuing chase ended when the Mazda hit a mailbox on St. Paul Avenue in Atlanta. LeCroy walked toward the passenger side of the Mazda; the camera showed the driver leaned over to the passenger window and fired a handgun. LeCroy was struck in the neck.
The driver then got out of the car on the passenger side, walked around the car and tried to move the mailbox to free his car. He had a gun in his hand at the time, the affidavit stated. When he didn't succeed in freeing his car, he retrieved several items from the car and then drove off in LeCroy's car, abandoning it several miles away on Gun Club Road.
Two APD officers saw Favors on Brook Avenue in northwest Atlanta and he was still wearing a heavy white winter jacket and green shirt that the camera recorded. Favors, according to affidavit, had blood on his hand. He later told police the blood was from a fight with his girlfriend.
Several witnesses told police they saw Favors throw a handgun onto the roof of an apartment just before he was captured, according to the affidavit. Police later retrieved a 9mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic.
Favors, who had been released from the Fulton jail only two weeks ago, was served Tuesday with arrest warrants for murder and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, said Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Favors was booked into the Fulton County Jail Tuesday evening for the 19th time, according to a a sheriff's office spokeswoman.
On Wednesday, Favors waived his first appearance hearing at the Fulton County Jail. A hearing was scheduled for Jan. 12 in Fulton County Superior Court, according to Favors' attorney, Michael Mann.
Favors is "depressed, he's definitely scared. He's a scared young man. Obviously facing charges like these, anybody would be scared," Mann said in a news conference outside the jail Wednesday.
Mann said he had not seen the dashboard video and could not comment on it.
His first arrest in Fulton came 11 years ago to the day: Dec. 28, 1999.
Keenan said an autopsy revealed the trooper was hit only once -- not twice as was previously believed. Keenan said Favors shot at LeCroy a total of three times.
The 38-year-old husband and father died en route to Grady Memorial Hospital a little before midnight Monday. He had been working on a special street crime suppression unit assigned to a particularly rough area of Bolton Road near Fulton County's Charlie Brown Field.
LeCroy was the 27th trooper to die in the line of duty but the first since 1975 to be shot to death. The flags at the Georgia Department of Public Safety and patrol posts were lowered to half-staff Tuesday in his honor.
LeCroy took great pride in being a trooper, his stepfather, Sam Houston, told the AJC.
"He was working his dream and we were all so happy for him,” Houston said Tuesday.
Houston said the slain lawman's 21-year-old son [Bret LeCroy] "seems to be taking it the hardest." Chadwick LeCroy leaves behind another son, 10-year-old Chase, and wife Keisha, who reside in Marietta.
Houston, a retired Smyrna police captain, said he had known LeCroy since he was a young boy.
“He was always around me,” Houston said. “I would have pieces of uniforms that would disappear occasionally and [I] would find Chad had them.”
Despite his interest in law enforcement, LeCroy didn't join the state patrol until 2008 after working in his biological father's construction business, Houston said. He was an eager student in the patrol's training academy, receiving the "top gun" award for scoring the highest in his class in firearms testing.
Upon graduation, every trooper is assigned a car that is to be driven home. LeCroy was given a new tan Charger with his badge number 744, painted on it.
“We have a photo of him leaning on his car with a huge smile on his face.” Houston said. “That smile on his face was like a kid at Christmas.”
LeCroy wasn't able to spend this Christmas at home because of work. But his Thanksgiving visit was much longer than normal, Houston said.
“On Thanksgiving the whole family was here, kids and grandkids. We had a houseful,” Houston said. “Chad seemed reluctant to leave. There was a fire in the fire place and he stayed and stayed and stayed until 1 in the morning. We just commented that, that was unusual.”
It would be the last time he'd see his stepson alive.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Friday at Roswell Street Baptist Church, 774 Roswell St. SE, Marietta. Visitation will take place Thursday, from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m., at Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home, 180 Church St., Marietta.
-- Staff photographer John Spink contributed to this article.
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