Dashboard Camera Captured Trooper’s Shooting

A state trooper’s dashboard video camera captured his fatal shooting Monday, allegedly at the hands of a man with a lengthy criminal record, according to a GBI affidavit obtained by the AJC.

The video led state and Atlanta investigators to arrest Gregory Favors, 30, a man with an 11-year criminal record but who had no previous arrests for violent behavior.

According to court records obtained by the AJC Wednesday, Favors was out of jail on $19,000 bond following a Dec. 10 arrest, for which he had been charged with several nonviolent felony offenses. He missed a hearing related to that arrest on Monday morning, the same day he allegedly gunned down LeCroy.

According to the affidavit, written by GBI agent A.B. Johnston, the video shows that Favors initially stopped when trooper First Class Chadwick LeCroy pulled behind him with his blue lights on but then sped away as LeCroy approached the Mazda 6.

According to the affidavit, which was used to secure a search warrant, the ensuing chase ended when the Mazda hit a mailbox on St. Paul Avenue in Atlanta. LeCroy walked toward the passenger side of the Mazda; the camera showed the driver leaned over to the passenger window and fired a handgun. LeCroy was struck in the neck.

The driver then got out of the car on the passenger side, walked around the car and tried to move the mailbox to free his car. He had a gun in his hand at the time, the affidavit stated. When he didn’t succeed in freeing his car, he retrieved several items from the car and then drove off in LeCroy’s car, abandoning it several miles away on Gun Club Road.

Two APD officers saw Favors on Brook Avenue in northwest Atlanta and he was still wearing a heavy white winter jacket and green shirt that the camera recorded. Favors, according to affidavit, had blood on his hand. He later told police the blood was from a fight with his girlfriend.

Several witnesses told police they saw Favors throw a handgun onto the roof of an apartment just before he was captured, according to the affidavit. Police later retrieved a 9mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic.

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His first arrest in Fulton came 11 years ago to the day: Dec. 28, 1999.

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