A Georgia state trooper was fired and charged with murder Friday a week after he shot a 60-year-old man who tried to flee a rural traffic stop, authorities said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that agents arrested Jacob Gordon Thompson, 27, on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault. The state Department of Public Safety said it fired Thompson, who had been a trooper for the Georgia State Patrol since 2013.
The charges came a week after Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis, 60, was fatally shot following a chase in rural Screven County, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Savannah.
Thompson had tried to pull over a car for a traffic violation when the driver tried to flee, the GBI said in a news release. The agency said the trooper chased the vehicle down several country roads before performing a maneuver that forced the car to come to a stop in a ditch.
At some point afterward, Thompson fired a single gunshot that hit Lewis, killing him, the GBI said. The trooper was not injured.
No other details have been released. GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said Friday that Lewis was Black and the trooper was white, but she declined to comment further on the case. Richard Mallard, district attorney for the judicial circuit that includes Screven County, did not immediately return a phone message.
It was not immediately known if Thompson had an attorney.