Police look for motive in killing of Houston area deputy

Investigators continued to search for a motive Sunday behind the gunning down of a Houston area sheriff's deputy, apparently by a man who had multiple encounters with law enforcement — but none with the officer he is charged with shooting.

The suspect in the case, Shannon J. Miles, was arrested Saturday and charged with capital murder. He will likely be arraigned Monday.

Miles is accused of fatally shooting Deputy Darren Goforth, a 10-year veteran with the Harris County Sheriff's Office, in the back late Friday. Goforth, 47, was filling his car at a Chevron gas station in the Texas county at the time of the attack. A makeshift memorial with balloons and flowers has popped up at the site.

The case comes amid several highly publicized shooting deaths of police officers in recent months. It marks the 23rd case this year in which a law enforcement officer was killed by non-accidental gunfire, according to data collected by the Officer Down Memorial Page. Last year, a total of 47 officers were killed by non-accidental gunfire.

Miles, 30, had a history of previous arrests, beginning with a 2005 conviction of criminal mischief, giving false information to police and resisting arrest, the Associated Press reported. In 2006, he was convicted of disorderly conduct with a firearm and sentenced to a maximum of 15 days in jail. He was convicted of evading arrest in 2007, and his most recent conviction came in 2009 for again resisting arrest. The AP cited records showing that Miles was sentenced to several short stints in jail, anywhere from 6 to 10 days.

However, Sheriff Ron Hickman said there was no indication that Miles had any previous encounters with Goforth. Speaking at a Saturday news conference, Hickman called the shooting "unprovoked" and said police had found no evidence of any rationale for the attack. "The working motive for this at this point is absolute madness," he said. "This is just a cold blooded execution, so how do you protect against that?"

Goforth was married with two children. His wife, Kathleen, described him as a man "you wanted for a friend, colleague, and a neighbor." In a statement released to local media she said: "My husband was an incredibly intricate blend of toughness and gentility. He was loyal ... fiercely so. And he was ethical; the right thing to do is what guided his internal compass. ... He was good."

Hickman linked the shooting to a national backlash over several recent killings of unarmed black people by police officers. Goforth was white and Miles is black.

At his news conference, Hickman said the shooting was related to "very dangerous national rhetoric" that has surfaced since the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., more than a year ago. The emergence of the "Black Lives Matter" campaign in the wake of the Ferguson case led to nationwide protests and calls for changes in police tactics and training.

Demonstrations occurred in the Houston area after Sandra Bland, a black, 28-year-old Chicago woman, was taken into custody after a traffic stop in nearby Waller County and subsequently found hanged in her jail cell last month. The death was ruled a suicide, but Bland's family disputes the finding.

Hickman suggested the public dialogue over policing and race relations has grown too heated and may have had a role in Goforth's shooting. "When rhetoric ramps up to the point where cold-blooded assassination has happened, this rhetoric has gotten out of control," he said. "We heard 'black lives matter.' All lives matter. Well, cops' lives matter too, so why don't we drop the qualifier and say 'lives matter' and take that to the bank."

Goforth's death comes just a week after the unprovoked shooting of a state trooper in Louisiana. In that case, Kevin Daigle, 54, is accused of killing Senior Trooper Steven Vincent, 43, with a sawed-off shotgun blast after the trooper pulled him over for a traffic stop near near Bell City. Both the suspect and the trooper were white.

The 23 non-accidental shooting deaths of police officers through August translates into a nationwide rate of about 2.9 such killings a month this year, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. In 2014, with 47 fatal shootings of police officers across the country, the rate was about 3.9 a month; in 2013, with 31 such deaths, the rate was about 2.6 a month.

At the suburban Houston gas station where Goforth was shot, hundreds of people came out for a vigil Saturday, and the show of support continued Sunday as a makeshift memorial of balloons, flowers and signs of support continued to grow. Local news outlets reported that thousands of dollars in donations had been raised to help the deputy's family.

Contributing: Jessica Estepa