Thread: Two Teens Arrested In Trooper Shooting

A Tennessee trooper is gunned down in west Tennessee and the search for the suspects ends in a Nashville motel room.
Tennessee Highway Patrol officials say 24-year old Calvin Jenks was shot and killed late Saturday night when he pulled over a car in Tipton County.

The shooting happened in Covington, just north of Memphis.
Authorities believe Jenks, a Maury county native, was trying to get the two men out the car, when he was shot and killed.

For much of the day, the two suspects have been questioned at TBI headquarters.
The two teenage suspects were brought out to be transported to Tipton county where they will be charged...
...with the trooper's murder.
Agents got a key break to make these arrests, but they called it a very sad day for the THP.

Not much is known about why Trooper Calvin Jenks stopped a car with Texas plates Saturday night in Tipton county about 45 minutes northeast of Memphis.
Nothing was heard from the 24 year-old trooper about the reason for pulling over the car or why he was fatally shot.

Investigators said a video from the troopers will help them piece together the shooting.
The trail of two male suspects within hours turned from the rural west Tennessee highway to a motel near downtown Nashville.
Investigators said two othermales--who were separately apprehended ---drove 17-year-old Alejandro Guana and 19-year Orlando Garcia to the music row area motel and told police of the suspects' whereabouts. Swat teams apprehended the two suspects without incident about 10:00 am.

Investigators believe the teenage suspects might be part of drug trafficking ring with possible connections to Austin Texas. TBI agents remained at the Nashville motel Sunday afternoon looking for more clues and agents are heading to Texas to find answers as well.
http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/two- ... /69935.htm
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I have been watching this story all day, just had that gut feeling about it. They just gave out the names and possible connection.

Mike, welcome to ALIPAC!
This family should sue for neglagence. What a shame.

Is it just me or does everyone else's local news most wanted criminal list usually contain a majority of hispanics? I'm not profiling here, but almost every night here in UT, the news has a story about a crime here or there, and it seems that the majority of the suspects are usually hispanics.

Now that construction is hurting, and some employers are getting nervous about hiring illegals, it may drive down the number of jobs available to them, and cause a rise in frustration. That of course, eventually leads to even more crime.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... /701080364

Monday, 01/08/07
Trooper's shooting death first since '91
Police believe suspects were smuggling drugs into Midstate

By JOHN BOAN
For The Tennessean

In the past 16 years, 10 Tennessee state troopers have been killed in the line of duty. But only one had been gunned down during that time — until Saturday.

Trooper Calvin Jenks, 24, of Culleoka in Maury County, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Tipton County, near Memphis, according to the Tennessee Department of Safety.


Two men arrested Sunday in Nashville are being charged in the slaying.

Jenks was the first THP officer killed by gunfire since 1991, when Trooper Douglas Tripp was shot in Claiborne County.

"We know that it can happen to any of us on any stop," said Steve Harvey, a THP captain in Lawrenceburg, where Jenks was stationed before moving to Memphis.

"You try not to think about it that way because you have a job, and you have to do it."

Officers across the state wore black bands over their badges
Sunday in mourning for Jenks.

Norm Jenks, the trooper's father, had a somber reaction to his son's death. "He loved serving the public," Norm Jenks said, unable to hold back tears. "He's going to be
missed a lot by all his family and friends."

Calvin Jenks had told co-workers he became a trooper to follow in the footsteps of his step-grandfather, a retired THP lieutenant.

Authorities gave this account of the slaying:

Jenks pulled over a rental car with Texas tags outside Covington, near the rural intersection of state highways 14 and 54. When he approached the car, he smelled marijuana and asked the driver to get out.

Jenks asked the driver if there were drugs in the vehicle, and the driver hesitantly admitted there were.

The trooper leaned inside the car, and the passenger pulled a gun and shot him twice in the head.

Jenks' body was dragged in front of the car, then run over as the men fled. He was dead when hunters found him early Sunday.

"I've seen the video" from the camera in Jenks' patrol car, said Mark Gwynn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. "It's a senseless, brutal murder."

Two arrested at hotel

Investigators found what they believe is Jenks' flashlight in a garbage can at a Wal-Mart in Brownsville, 13 miles east of the scene of the shooting. Jenks apparently dropped the light in the car when he was shot.

The Commercial-Appeal in Memphis reported that the car was found in Brownsville.

TBI agents and Metro police arrested Alejandro Guana, 17, and Orlando Garcia, 19, both from Texas, on Sunday at the Best Western hotel near Music Row in Nashville, Gwynn said.

Two men believed to have given Guana and Garcia a ride to Nashville had been arrested earlier, he said. They were not identified.

Guana and Garcia were taken to Tipton County to be charged.

Investigators believe they were smuggling drugs into the Midstate, Gwynn said.

Jenks graduated from the THP's Cadet School in April 2004 and began work in Marshall County. He was transferred to the THP in Memphis in July 2006.

"He was a fine young man, a fine trooper and a sharp professional," THP Col. Mike Walker said.

"The men who did this are the scum of the earth."

This is dam disgusting. And now the new congress is considering not funding the border fence!! What does it take to get it thru their heads???
I have a couple of good letters in my mind and they are going to my new representative and senator. I can't be more fed up.

IMO, if our law enforcement officers keep getting gunned down I think major changes will come to the police forces. I suspect one of those changes will be to have their side arm out at all times even for a simple traffic stop.