A man charged with the attempted murder of a Tennessee police officer was out on bond when authorities say he shot the cop.
The suspect, Samuel Quinton Edwards, was later killed in a firefight with authorities in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday. Police say Edwards was on the run after he shot Hendersonville Police Department Officer Cameron Ferrell in Madison, Tennessee, on Monday.
“Samuel Quinton Edwards has been involved in an exchange of gunfire with Kentucky State Police in Louisville. He is deceased,” Metro Nashville Police announced.
Ferrell was released from the hospital after sustaining non-critical injuries when he was shot while pursuing Edwards on Monday, police say.
According to The Tennessean, the 34-year-old suspect had been released on bond prior to allegedly shooting Ferrell. He was facing more than 12 charges related to another shooting involving cops just weeks ago.
The incident occurred on June 14, when law enforcement chased Edwards and Erica Lynn, a convicted felon in the vehicle with Edwards, down I-40 after a shooting involving two vehicles. The chase ended with Edwards veering into a telephone pole. Authorities recovered drugs and weapons from his car. Lynn was also charged following the encounter.
Edwards, a convicted felon, was released on an $80,000 bond following the incident.
The hunt for Edwards intensified on Tuesday as police tried to track down the suspect after surveillance footage showed him fleeing the scene of Monday’s shooting armed with two guns. Throughout the ordeal, he used multiple vehicles to evade arrest.
Police from Millersville, Hendersonville, Nashville, and deputies with the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department hunted for the suspected shooter in Millersville, Tennessee, on Tuesday. Investigators also utilized bloodhounds and the Nashville police’s air unit.
Edwards was killed Tuesday night after a shootout with law enforcement near Louisville, Kentucky.
Kentucky State Police did not release many details about the confrontation but promised that it would be “committed to being transparent while ensuring the integrity of the investigation.”
The alleged attempted murder of the Tennessee officer by a suspect out on bond follows the killing of two police officers in California earlier this month by a suspect out on probation.
Two El Monte police officers were killed during a shooting while responding to a domestic violence call at a motel on Tuesday afternoon. The man suspected of killing the officers is named Justin Flores, who sources told the L.A. Times had been released from jail on probation.
According to the Times, in February 2021, Flores pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm as part of a plea deal that dismissed a drug charge and an ammunition charge.
The shootings occurred at a motel in El Monte, a city in Los Angeles County, where both officers and the suspect accused of killing them were shot dead. The officers, one in his first year on the job and another with more than 20 years of experience.