Shirtless and cuffed: Man suspected of shooting, killing cop arrested after statewide manhunt
Shirtless and cuffed: Man suspected of shooting, killing cop arrested after statewide manhunt
A man accused of killing a Shreveport police officer was arrested Thursday after a round-the-clock manhunt, police said.
Grover Cannon, 27, was in a backyard detached garage not far from the house where Officer Thomas LaValley was shot dead on Wednesday.
Shreveport police spokesman Cpl. Marcus Hines said: ‘He was sitting in the back of the garage, just hanging out. … He may have been consuming a hard beverage. I’m not sure what it was.’
He said Cannon was taken into custody without incident. Hines said the tipster probably was acting both as a good citizen and for a $25,000 reward offered for information leading to Cannon’s capture.
The capture was the result of efforts by the FBI, the Shreveport Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service, Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office and Louisiana State Police. The FBI offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to Cannon’s arrest.
LaValley, 29, was shot multiple times about 9 p.m. Wednesday while answering a call about a suspicious person at a home in the city’s Queensborough neighborhood.
Shreveport Police Chief Willie Shaw said neighbors told the officer that the man inside the home was wanted. The officer didn’t know the man was armed, and he went inside and was shot, Shaw said.
Police already had a warrant for Cannon’s arrest on a charge of attempted second-degree murder in the shooting of Darren Williams on July 15.
‘Long story short, he gets into an argument with one guy, pumps him full of led and runs off,’ Hines said.
A four-year member of the force, LaValley began working as a lawman after more than three years as a television news photographer. Shaw described LaValley as the top graduate in his police academy class and a hero who will never be forgotten.
‘He was doing what he loved,’ Shaw said. ‘He did not hesitate to confront a bad person.’
Casey Habich said he and other friends were sure LaValley went into the house thinking he was going to help someone. ‘That’s what he went to do,’ Habich said.
He described LaValley as ‘just a good old south Louisiana boy who wants to drink and watch the Saints play on Sunday and lose his shoes’ – and a man who would help anyone, any time.
LaValley was originally from St. Amant, southeast of Baton Rouge, and joined a television station after graduating from Northwestern State University with a major in biology and a minor in journalism, Habich said.
Habich, who was a news photographer for the station when LaValley was hired, said he thought working the night crime beat, ‘running with first responders every night,’ made LaValley decide he wanted to become a police officer.
‘It was just in his nature to take care of people,’ he said.
He also loved his state, often saying he’d never leave Louisiana. And though he often griped good-naturedly about his cat – named Drew, after New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees – LaValley paid $1,200 to get it through an infection, Habich said.
Police said a memorial service honoring LaValley will be held at 4 p.m. Friday at Summer Grove Baptist Church in Shreveport, with visitation afterward.
Today Shreveport police chief Willie Shaw paid tribute to LaValley, saying he had personally hired him after he was awarded honor graduate following his training.
Speaking about suspect Connor, Shaw said: ‘If he’s out there and he sees this, he is nothing to me but a coward. No matter what rock he crawls under, we will find him.’
Connor has been charged with first degree murder today after police said he shot officer LaValley multiple times after cops were called to reports of a suspicious person in a home.
When LaValley arrived he reportedly found Connor threatening a family member with a gun before Connor opened fire.
Fire crews tried to give first aid to LaValley before he was taken to hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries, Fox News reports.
Shaw added that Connor was already being hunted by police after allegedly shooting Darren Wilson, 45, on July 15. He was charged with second degree attempted murder after that attack.
Shaw added that LaValley’s death was particularly poignant for him, as he personally recruited LaValley from his old job as a news cameraman.
During an interview several years ago, Shaw began talking to LaValley, who said he had applied to become a cop but got rejected.
Shaw told reporters he had promised to hire LaValley if he put himself through training, before emerging as the honor graduate.
Today officers in Louisiana began checking Greyhound buses around the city for any trace of Connor, while cops in Jackson, Mississippi, also began checking coaches that had arrived there after departing from Shreveport.
Last night all cars in the area were being stopped and over 70 police forces were ordered to start going door to door.
Officers searched two properties where Connor may have been hiding late last night, but he was not found inside either of them.
Caddo Parish Constable’s Office posted on their Facebook page, ‘May God bless the family of the SPD officer that lost his life tonight serving our city.
‘Please keep this officer’s family in your prayers tonight as well as our law enforcement. He died protecting us.’
