14 DAY TRIAL // The sheriff in Mingo County, West Virginia has been fatally shot at close range while sitting in his patrol car during his lunch break on Wednesday, April 3.
Sheriff Eugene Crum was eating in his car in a Williamson parking lot on Harvey Street, near a courthouse when he was attacked.
The incident prompted an evacuation of the Mingo County Courthouse, WCHSTV reports. Police identified suspect Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37 and initiated a pursuit on Route 52.
He drove his gold Ford Ranger in the Delbarton area until being stopped by a Mingo deputy, who smashed into his vehicle to get him to stop.
“He knew how to stop him. [...] He hit him in the back wheel and that stopped him,” recalls witness Wiburn Workman.
The fugitive has then been shot several times and is now recovering at Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington. His godmother, Glenda Fischer, suggests that the suspect's mental condition following his stay at Highland Hospital is what prompted the shooting.
“He doesn't do drugs. He was on some medication the doctor ordered. [...] I feel bad for him. I feel bad for Eugene Crum and his family,” she says.
While Crum has only been a sheriff for a little over three months, he had already started a program to clear the streets of drugs in January. More than 50 people were indicted as part of Operation Zero Tolerance, Huffington Post reports.
“Eugene Crum has exceeded my highest expectations as Mingo County Drug Enforcement Investigator and now as Mingo County Sheriff,” prosecutor C. Michael Sparks said at the time.
“We ask not only West Virginia, but all of America to keep Sheriff Crum, his family and our community in your prayers,” Mingo County Commission President John-Mark Hubbard notes.