The Associated Press
As he lay in the grass next to Interstate 470 after being shot at least eight times early Saturday, Missouri Trooper Brandon Brashear found the strength to describe his assailant.
Less than an hour later, in an Independence pool hall, authorities arrested a suspect in the shooting that critically injured Brashear.
On Saturday, Jackson County prosecutors charged Tommy R. Rollins Jr., 25, of Grandview with first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer and armed criminal action.
The shooting occurred shortly after 2 a.m. when Brashear tried to pull over a man in a white Chevrolet Monte Carlo as he was driving erratically on northbound Interstate 470 in Lees Summit.
Brashear told Highway Patrol dispatchers at 2:08 a.m. that he was pursuing the vehicle in a chase that lasted about two miles from Woods Chapel Road on I-470 to just north of the Lakewood Way exit.
Dispatchers last heard from Brashear at 2:09 a.m. when he told them the car was slowing down and appeared to be stopping.
In court documents filed to support the charges against Rollins, authorities allege that he opened fire with a 9mm pistol as Brashear climbed out of his patrol car.
Rollins then chased Brashear into the median of the interstate, shooting him several times, authorities allege. Brashear stumbled into a ditch and was unable to call for help. The trooper was hit at least eight times and possibly more, prosecutors said.
About 2:15 a.m., after dispatchers were unable to contact Brashear, other troopers raced to the scene, where they found the wounded trooper. Just before being airlifted to a local hospital, Brashear described the man who shot him.
It was just unbelievable that he was able to do all that, said Sgt. John Hotz, a patrol spokesman.
Authorities said that Brashear was wearing a bulletproof vest and that some of the bullets hit the vest and others hit Brashear around the vest. They did not say exactly what injuries he had suffered.
Less than an hour after the shooting, police arrested Rollins at The Break, a pool hall at 2900 S. Missouri 291 in Independence.
In court documents filed Saturday, authorities alleged that Rollins told patrons in the pool hall that he had just shot a police officer and asked them to call authorities.
Independence police arrested Rollins about 3 a.m. and took him to the Lees Summit Police Department for questioning.
Court documents state that Rollins took investigators to a home in the 3400 block of Sioux Court in Independence, where the gun thought to have been used in the shooting was recovered. Investigators also recovered two homemade gasoline bombs.
Rollins was being held Saturday night at the Lees Summit Police Department without bond.
Brashear, 27, underwent surgery early Saturday and was listed in critical but stable condition Saturday afternoon at a local hospital.
The Grain Valley resident had been with the Highway Patrol for a little more than two years, Hotz said.
He was assigned to Troop A, which serves a 13-county area in western Missouri, including Jackson, Clay and Platte counties.
He’s a good young officer and does a great job, Hotz said.