BIG STONE GAP, Va. (AP) - A South Carolina man has been charged in the shooting death of a police officer during a welfare check in western Virginia earlier this month.
Michael White, 33, of Cross, South Carolina, was indicted Monday in the death of Big Stone Gap Officer Michael Chandler earlier this month, the Bristol Herald Courier reported. White is charged with aggravated murder of a law enforcement officer and a dozen other offenses, Wise County court documents show. Aggravated murder, a felony, calls for a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison.
White shot Chandler after the officer responded to a welfare check call at a vacant house early on Nov. 13, Virginia State Police said. A Wise County sheriff's deputy found Chandler lying unconscious in a ditch along the driveway. His patrol car and another vehicle were both at the scene, but White had fled on foot, police said. Chandler, 29, died later that day at a Tennessee hospital.
White was arrested on a probation violation warrant that night at the Travel Inn in Kingsport, Tennessee, police said. He was held without bond and an arraignment on that charge was scheduled for Tuesday. Online court records do not list an attorney for White.