Authorities name driver fatally shot by deputies in Memphis after he sped toward them
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Authorities say they have identified a man who was fatally shot by sheriff’s deputies after speeding toward them in a vehicle while officers were serving a drug-related search warrant in a Memphis neighborhood Friday.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says the man killed in the incident was 30-year-old James Q. Hampton.
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said officers were serving a high-risk drug arrest warrant that afternoon when a man waiting in a vehicle drove at a high rate of speed toward a SWAT team in the Orange Mound neighborhood.
Officers opened fire and killed the driver, Bonner said. No deputies were injured.
Authorities were “working to independently determine the series of events that led to the shooting,” the agency said in a statement.
Three people were arrested during the search and are facing drug-related charges, court records show. One of them is also charged with possession of a firearm during a dangerous crime, and another is additionally charged with stealing a car. Arrest affidavits described the search warrant location as a “base of operations” for people involved in a drug trafficking organization.
During the search, officers found several firearms with high-capacity magazines and a pistol equipped with a Glock switch, a device that turns a pistol into an automatic weapon, Bonner said. They also found several pounds of marijuana, some Xanax and oxycodone pills and thousands of dollars in cash at that property and in a backyard next door, where four others fled, according to an arrest affidavit.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting, which occurred six days after nine people were shot at an Orange Mound park. Two men were killed and seven other people were injured but survived. No arrests have been made.
It also occurred two weeks after Memphis Police Officer Joseph McKinney was killed during a shootout that occurred while officers were investigating a suspicious vehicle. One suspect was also killed.