Thousands pay respects to deputy sheriff killed at Houston-area gas station

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/04/houston-texas-deputy-sheriff-darren-goforth-funeral

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Thousands of people on Friday attended the funeral service for the Houston-area deputy sheriff who was shot, apparently at random, at a gas station a week before.

Law enforcement officers travelled from across Texas and other states to pay tribute to Darren Goforth at the vast Second Baptist church, in west Houston. Ron Hickman, the Harris County sheriff, said more than 11,000 people were present in the church and overflow areas.

Two officers in wide-brimmed hats and white gloves stood guard in front of the casket, which was draped in the American flag. Many vehicles in the parking lot displayed the stars and stripes.

In the service, Goforth was remembered as a hardworking and down-to-earth family man who loved to repair cars and helped at his father’s factory on his days off.

The 10-year sheriff’s office veteran was killed in a middle-class part of north-west Houston last Friday evening. In the days that followed, pump eight at the Chevron station – where he liked to stop and get a coffee and write reports during shifts – became a memorial to the 47-year-old, covered in flowers, messages, candles and balloons.

Attempts to politicize Goforth’s death have underlined heightened racial tension amid nationwide protests over police killings of African Americans. There has been speculation that the shooting was a form of revenge. Goforth was white and Shannon Miles, who has been charged with the murder, is black. But the motive remains opaque.

“Our assumption is that he was a target because he wore a uniform,” Sheriff Hickman said at a press conference last week, criticising what he described as out-of-control “rhetoric” and adding: “We’ve heard Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter. Well, cops’ lives matter, too.”

Hickman’s son, Jeremy Hickman, was in the church parking lot before the service.

“I stand behind his comments 100%,” he said. “The rhetoric has gotten out of control. Why can’t we come together and say all lives matter?”

He said he had heard stories of ordinary citizens standing guard to protect police officers this week, if they spotted them pumping gas.

This week a community activist and former jailer in East Texas posted to Facebook a video blaming Goforth’s death on black civil rights protestors and encouraging citizens to attack them at rallies, the New York Daily News reported.

“Y’all get that slingshot,” he said. “Get you some damn rocks … Grandmas, grandpas, kids – all of you can get in on this. Don’t ever threaten another cop in Texas. Don’t ever threaten another white person.”

Some in the rightwing media have linked Goforth’s death to protests over the death of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was found hanged in her cell on 13 July in Waller County, about 30 miles away from the gas station.

Both Bland and Miles attended Prairie View A&M University, but not at the same time, and there is no indication they knew each other.

Cannon Lambert, the Bland family’s attorney, said “the man that shot that officer is disgusting, he turns my stomach”, and rejected any suggestion of a relationship between protests and the deputy’s murder.

“We are not going to focus on revenge or getting even or repercussions or anything of that nature,” Shannon Bowdoin, a Harris County sheriff and chaplain, said during the ceremony. “For those of you who think that the men and women who wear the badge … are going to be motivated by fear or rhetoric, you are sadly mistaken.”

Prosecutors said Goforth had just come out of the gas station’s store when Miles got out of his truck, ran up behind Goforth, put a gun to the back of his head and began shooting.

Miles shot at Goforth 15 times, hitting him in the head and back and unloading every bullet in the weapon, prosecutors said. He was arrested the following day after police studied surveillance footage and found his red pick-up truck.

The 30-year-old has a criminal history dating back a decade, including a conviction for disorderly conduct with a firearm. In 2012 he was found mentally unfit to stand trial on an assault charge, after he fought a man at a homeless shelter in Austin over a remote control.

Miles has been charged with capital murder, which could carry the death penalty, and is being held without bond. He is next scheduled to be in court on 5 October.

On Monday, President Obama called Goforth’s widow, Kathleen, to express his condolences. The couple have a 12-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), Goforth is one of 83 law enforcement officers to die in the line of duty in the US this year, 24 of whom were fatally shot. Last year there were 133 line of duty deaths, including 47 by gunfire.

Goforth is the first Texas officer to be shot dead since last October, according to the ODMP.