Funeral plans announced for Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- One week after Deputy Darren Goforth was shot and killed in a gas station parking lot, he will be laid to rest.
The funeral will happen Friday at Second Baptist Church on Voss Road. Services will start at 11:00am.
Early this morning, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas flags in Harris County and at the Capitol to be lowered to half-staff to honor of Deputy Goforth.
A prayer walk in Goforth's honor drew hundreds of people Sunday evening. As the group marched through the streets escorted by law enforcement vehicles, traffic in the opposite lanes came to a halt, video from news helicopters showed. Onlookers stood along the road, some waving American flags and others snapping photos.
A Houston-based nonprofit group called the 100 Club, which supports the families of firefighters and law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, is providing Goforth's wife with $20,000, and additional support, up to $300,000, could be provided to his family depending on their needs after an assessment is completed, the organization said.
Shannon J. Miles, the man charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting, had a lengthy criminal record going back a decade, but he never spent more than short stints in jail. His record includes convictions for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct with a firearm.
Miles is set to be arraigned today in the shooting of the 10-year veteran of the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Miles' arrest Saturday came less than 24 hours after authorities said he ambushed Goforth at a suburban Houston Chevron station.
Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said the attack was "clearly unprovoked," and there is no evidence that Goforth knew Miles. Investigators have no information from Miles that would shed light on his motive, Hickman said.
"Our assumption is that he (Goforth) was a target because he wore a uniform," the sheriff said.
Goforth, 47, was pumping gas at a Chevron station Friday night in Cypress, a middle- to upper-middle-class suburban area of Harris County located northwest of Houston, when the gunman approached him from behind and fired multiple shots, continuing to fire after the deputy had fallen to the ground.
The killing evoked strong emotions in the local law enforcement community, with Hickman linking it to heightened tension over the treatment of African-Americans by police. Goforth was white and Miles is black.
The nationwide "Black Lives Matter" movement that formed after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has sought sweeping reforms of policing. Related protests erupted in Texas recently after a 28-year-old Chicago-area black woman, Sandra Bland, was found dead in a county jail about 50 miles northwest of Houston three days after her arrest on a traffic violation. Texas authorities said she committed suicide but her family is skeptical of that.
Hickman and Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson pushed back against the criticism of police.
"We've heard Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter. Well, cops' lives matter, too," Hickman said Saturday.
Deray McKesson, a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, told the Houston Chronicle: "It is unfortunate that Sheriff Hickman has chosen to politicize this tragedy and to attribute the officer's death to a movement that seeks to end violence."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
