Decorated Virginia State Police Trooper Murdered, Two Others Injured, in Random Shooting

Details

Category: Crime

Published on Saturday, 02 April 2016 12:01

Written by Janet Walker

Trooper Chad P. Dermyer, who one year ago was receiving an accommodation from his superiors, was shot and killed at the Richmond Greyhound Station by an ex-con who opened fire, in the crowded terminal, after a brief verbal encounter.  

During a routine 2015 traffic stop for expired license plates Dermyer, always insisted when he recounted the events, he had an uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right.

According to reports during the routine traffic stop that could have ended with a warning, citation or ticket at the officer’s discretion, the trooper requested the driver open the trunk. It was then he made a shocking discovery, the mummified remains of a child, a son, reported missing more than a decade before.

The driver has since been charged and convicted with the son’s murder.

Dermyer, and more than two dozen officers where staging an active shooter counterterrorism exercise at the local Greyhound station, when James Brown, III of Aurora Illinois, who according to CCTV, was sitting in the terminal’s restaurant during a layover.

He went to his luggage, which had been placed hear the front of the building, in the Chicago bus queue had a few words with Trooper Dermyer went to his bag pulled out a handgun and in close range shot and killed the officer.

The exchange of gunfire inside the terminal resulted in two other injuries both of which were non-life threatening.

Brown, who had an extensive criminal record, including attempted murder, domestic battery and was sentenced in 2012 to 2 ½ years, was shot and killed. In his personal effects, officers found 140 rounds.

The Terminal re-opened Friday Afternoon.

File image courtesy of Virginia State Troopers and used with permission.