For an Arkansas sheriff, the death of a veteran deputy and the near death of a police chief after they responded to a call on Wednesday drove home a message he hoped would crystallize in the public consciousness.
(CNN)- Yes, law officers make bad mistakes and at times behave badly with deadly consequences, Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said. But cops put their lives on the line every day, and do so for their communities.
“Another perfect example of how local law enforcement comes to work every day; they leave their family to serve and protect,” Hollenbeck said two hours after Deputy Bill Cooper died in surgery and after Hackett Police Chief Darrell Spells was injured. “Thousands of times a day we do it right, but over the last several years it appears we focus on those incidents where we mess up.”
Cooper, 65 and on the verge of retirement, Spells and other officers showed up around 7:10 a.m. at the manufactured home on a large rural lot off Arkansas Highway 253, after a 911 call that a man and his adult son were fighting over tools, and the son had pulled a gun.
When the deputies and officers arrived, they quickly reported that the son had an assault-style rifle and body armor and that they were met by rifle fire, Hollenbeck said. He identified the gunman as 35-year-old Billy Monroe Jones.
“Officers were able to take cover and at that time Mr. Jones started firing,” the sheriff said.
Officials said Jones barricaded himself in the home and shot at dozens of responding officers, pinning them down along with neighbors and family members who wandered into the field of fire.
About 7:40 a.m., both Cooper and Spells were shot, Hollenbeck said. Law officers, under fire, rescued Cooper and Spells and also civilians who had taken cover, the sheriff said.