Image Credit: Tennessee Highway Patrol / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
Repeat criminal offenders continue to plague the state as two previously convicted criminals are accused of shooting a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper last Friday.
Braze Rucker and Timothy Davis, Jr. are the two men arrested for the shooting of trooper Adam Cothron in Putnam County last Friday.
Officer Cothron was shot after pulling the pair over along I-40 East near Cookeville because of a non-functioning tail light. According to law enforcement, as Cothron approached the car, Davis pulled out a gun and shot him in the shoulder.
The two abandoned their car after attempting to burn it near Gallatin. Rucker was arrested over the weekend, and Davis was apprehended on Monday in Kentucky.
Records show that this is not the first time for either of the suspects to be in legal trouble.
According to police, Rucker shot and attempted to rob two individuals in Nashville in 2016. A female victim was paralyzed from the shoulder down after the incident.
Rucker had two of the four charges against him at the time dismissed, including a charge of attempted first degree murder. He ended up being sentenced in 2017 to 14 years in prison for aggravated assault and especially aggravated assault.
He served less than five years before he was released.
Davis was convicted in 2016 on charges of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The Board of Parole stated that neither of the men was under any type of supervision at the time of the shooting. No information has been released as to how they were granted early release from prison.
Davis is charged with attempted first-degree murder and given a $3 million bond. Rucker has been charged with criminal responsibility for facilitation of a felony charge and has a $1 million bond.
Trooper Cothron was flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in serious condition. His wife has since posted that he is expected to make a full recovery.
Victims’ advocates and law enforcement officials argue that situations such as this are preventable by simply keeping violent offenders behind bars.
“It is inexplicable how this person even had the opportunity to do this,” stated Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
3 Responses
Inexplicable?? It’s simple as insufficient punishment of these dimmercrap darlings.
FUNNY, how they can predict when a person is dangerous and never been convicted of such but still deny them their “Second Amendment”.
But can’t predict if a person is dangerous who has been convicted of dangerous conduct.
Death row has NO repeat offenders! And it SAVES Lives.