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Texas Deputy Killed in Gas Station 'Ambush'

Darren Goforth shot while pumping gas, in uniform
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 29, 2015 5:33 AM CDT
Texas Deputy Killed in Gas Station 'Ambush'
Surveillance video of the shooter.   (Harris County Sheriff's Office)

A gunman ambushed a Texas sheriff's deputy at a gas station in what the Harris County Sheriff says "appears to be an unprovoked, execution-style killing," reports CNN. Deputy Darren Goforth was killed last night, in uniform, as he was pumping gas into his vehicle near Houston. "The male suspect came up behind him and shot the deputy multiple times," says Deputy Thomas Gilliland, per the Houston Chronicle. The gunman continued to fire repeatedly after Goforth fell to the ground, then fled in a pickup. KTRK reports that police have taken a suspect into custody after converging on a home in Copperfield.

The 47-year-old Goforth, who had a wife and two children, had investigated a car accident about a half-hour before the shooting, but authorities don't know if that had anything to do with his killing. Police describe the gunman as a dark-complexioned man in his 20s, based on surveillance video. "In my 45 years in law enforcement, I can't recall another incident so cold-blooded and cowardly," says Sheriff Ron Hickman. (More Texas stories.)

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