FORT SMITH -- A Greenwood man was charged Monday with killing a Sebastian County sheriff's deputy, wounding the Hackett police chief, shooting at other law enforcement officers and wounding a police dog.
Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue charged Billy Monroe Jones, 34, with one count of capital murder in the fatal shooting of Deputy Bill Cooper, 66, and 10 counts of attempted capital murder over the shots fired at officers who arrived at Jones' rural home in response to a disturbance call Wednesday morning.
Cooper's funeral is 10 a.m. today at the Fort Smith Convention Center.
The officers named in the attempted capital-murder counts, according to court records, were Hackett Police Chief Darrell Spells, who was wounded in the shooting; Greenwood police officers Mason Redding and Dennis Wisner; Barling police officer Keith Lindley; and Sebastian County sheriff's deputies Alex Beauvais, Zachary Krieger, Mark Harris, Sgt. Charles Capps, Capt. Allan Marx and Capt. Steve Cox.
Shue also charged Jones with one felony count of killing or injuring an animal used by law enforcement or a search-and-rescue team. Kina, the Greenwood police dog, was shot twice as she sat in a Greenwood patrol car that was struck by several bullets.
Jones also was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Authorities have said a rifle was used in the shootings but have provided no other details.
Jones, who has been held without bail in the Crawford County jail since his arrest Wednesday, is to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Wednesday before Sebastian County Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh.
Capital murder carries the death penalty in Arkansas. Shue said in a news release Monday that he will carefully study the evidence before deciding whether to pursue the death penalty against Jones. The other penalty for a capital-murder conviction is life in prison without parole.
"I will examine the sufficiency of the evidence linking the defendant to the offenses, the seriousness of the offenses, the defendant's culpability, aggravating circumstances, mitigating circumstances and potential victim impact evidence," he said in the release.
Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said his agency is investigating the shootings. Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said last week that state police were asked to conduct the investigation to allow sheriff's office personnel time to mourn the loss of their fellow deputy.
Before Cooper's death, the last Arkansas law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty was Johnson County sheriff's Auxiliary Deputy Sonny Allan Smith, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, a nonprofit website dedicated to honoring law enforcement officers who die in the line of duty. Smith was killed in May 2015 while investigating a burglary.
The Sebastian County sheriff's office received a call about 7 a.m. Wednesday that Jones had gone to his father's property, next door to his, to take some tools and pulled a gun on him before leaving.
Spells told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he heard the call on the radio and, like other deputies and officers, headed to Jones' property. He was about a mile away from the property at a staging point when he heard that Cooper had been shot and three other officers were taking fire.
Spells and Marx, the sheriff's SWAT team commander, led other officers toward the mobile home. Vehicles that approached within 100 yards of the home were fired at.
Spells said his vehicle took seven to nine bullets, one of which grazed his temple. He abandoned his vehicle and jumped into a ditch.
While Capps provided cover fire, Marx told the Democrat-Gazette last week, he and other officers pulled Cooper and Spells out of the line of fire and to medical personnel who transported them to the hospital in Fort Smith.
Cooper was shot about 7:40 a.m. and died about 1:15 p.m., according to the sheriff's office. Spells, who was wounded minutes after Cooper, was treated and released from the hospital.
Jones surrendered about noon Wednesday.
State Desk on 08/16/2016