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SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A grand jury will hear evidence in the fall against the man accused of killing a police officer in the northwest Louisiana city of Shreveport, prosecutors said during a brief hearing Friday.
Grover Cannon, 27, appeared via video link before Judge Ramona Emanuel, who ordered him held without bond in Wednesday's shooting death of Officer Thomas LaValley.
The grand jury will decide on Oct. 13 whether to charge Cannon with first-degree murder, which carries a possible death sentence. He is scheduled for arraignment Oct. 20, Caddo Parish prosecutors told the judge.
Cannon told the judge he cannot afford an attorney. When the judge asked him how he supported himself, Cannon answered, "Cut grass," KTBS-TV reported (http://bit.ly/1K865hT).
Cannon also has a Sept. 1 court appearance on an attempted second-degree murder charge stemming from an alleged shooting last month. Emanuel set $150,000 bond on that charge, which accuses him of shooting Darren Williams on July 15, and $100,000 on a charge of possessing a firearm after a felony conviction.
Williams, who attended a Thursday night vigil for LaValley, told KSLA-TV (http://bit.ly/1ho6Yfp), that he was shot while serving court papers on Cannon.
"I been in this field for a while and I have never seen a guy that was so coldblooded, in my eyes, to shoot me down in broad daylight and then chase me like a dog and shoot me," Williams said.
LaValley, a four-year veteran of the police department and the top graduate of his police academy class, was shot when he went into a house where a neighbor said a fugitive was threatening residents.
On an audio recording, KTBS reported, LaValley can be heard confronting the man and ordering him to show his hands. Gunfire follows. The shooter then ran, police said.
A memorial service for LaValley was scheduled Friday in Shreveport, with his funeral at 11 a.m. Monday in his hometown of St. Amant, about 20 miles southeast of Baton Rouge.
Cannon dropped out of school after 8th grade and, since 2004, has been convicted of possession of stolen things, burglary, possession of marijuana, flight from an officer, misdemeanor battery, trespassing, resisting an officer and felony theft, KTBS reported.
His mother, Ramona Cannon, told KSLA (http://bit.ly/1IrA5ac) that her son has not talked to her for some time.
She said she was relieved that he was arrested without any shooting, and that her son was alive.
"I'm sorry for their loss and I'm sorry that had to happen to that officer," she said. "And I'm sorry that my son had to get caught up in all this too. I'm sorry for all of them."
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