Agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have arrested two hard working immigrants in connection with the fatal shooting of a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer in Tipton County.
They are 17-year-old Alejandro Guana and 19-year-old Orlando Garcia. A photo of Garcia is featured to the right. However, a photo of Guana has not been released yet. Neither has been formally charged.
In a news release, TBI Director Mark Gwyn is quoted saying, “this is a sad day for law enforcement. We extend our condolences to the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the family of Trooper Jenks. No arrest can erase what’s happened, but we hope this will provide some measure of comfort to his loved ones.” At least lettuce is still cheap.
Agents tracked the two men to a Best Western off Music Row in Nashville.
Trooper Calvin Jenks, a 24-year-old who joined the Tennessee Highway Patrol in April of 2004, was shot to death after a traffic stop last night.
At 9:37 Saturday night, a pair of hunters in Tipton county called police to say he had found a Tennessee Highway Patrolman’s body in front of a patrol car, Northbound on Highway 14, just one mile south of Highway 54 in the community of Cotton Lake.
Authorities say Trooper Jenks was shot twice.
His co-workers had reportedly last had contact with Jenks at 8 p.m. when he booked some DUI suspects into the Tipton county jail. Authorities say after that the trooper went back to the DUI crime scene. That’s when, they believe, he ran into the suspects.
A spokesman from the state Department of Safety says footage from the patrol car’s video camera shows the trooper pulling over two men in a compact car.
There was no radio communication prior to the incident.
According to a spokesperson for the THP, Jenks walked up to the car and smelled marijuana. He asked the driver for his license. The driver reportedly didn’t have one so Jenks made the guy put his hands up on the back of the car.
Jenks then reportedly asked if there were more drugs in the car. Officials say the suspect told him they were in the console. When Jenks went and looked into the car, the passenger in the front seat shot him, say THP officials.
The drivers then took off.
Later, a custodian at the Walmart on Dupree in Brownsville found a “Department of Safety” flashlight in the dumpster. He knew police were looking for suspects, so he reported it. Investigators also found shell casings in the Walmart Parking lot.
Jenks had been working in Tipton County for a year and a half, having been assigned there in July of 2005. Previously he’d been working in Marshall County, TN.
Jenks graduated from trooper school in April 2004. He transferred to the Tipton area in 2005 to be closer to his fiancee, who is in medical school in Memphis. Jenks had been married for two months and living on Mud Island.
According to the news release from the Highway Patrol, Trooper Jenks was a native of Maury County. He is a 1999 graduate of Culleoka High School and attended Columbia State Community College. Trooper Jenks told co-workers he became a Trooper to follow in his step grandfather, Wayne Hartsfield’s, footsteps and to make a difference. Hartsfield is a retired THP Lieutenant.
“This cowardly act has taken a young man from his family and friends. Trooper Jenks was nearly the same age as my oldest daughter. Our hearts and prayers are with his family,” said Colonel Mike Walker in the statement.
Guana and Garcia will be transported back to Tipton County this evening where they will be officially charged.
Authorities believe the two suspects were carrying drugs and headed toward Nashville after the shooting.
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