Sheriff Eugene Crum was cracking down on drug trafficking in the mountainous coal-mining region. (Tim Kiser/Wikimedia Commons)

As Reuters reports, Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was eating lunch in his marked SUV in a parking lot in the city of Williamson, something he did regularly to monitor a suspected drug operation nearby, when 37-year-old Tennis Melvin Maynard is alleged to have shot him at least three times before fleeing in his own vehicle.

After crashing into a bridge on U.S. Route 52, Maynard raised a weapon at officers pursuing him and was shot by a Mingo County sheriff’s deputy, according to Captain Dave Nelson of the West Virginia State Police.

Crum, 59, was a former magistrate who became sheriff at the beginning of the year, had launched an aggressive campaign to combat trafficking of prescription drugs, a problem in the economically depressed coal-mining region.

Read more of Neon Tommy’s coverage of West Virginia here.

Reach Executive Producer Matt Pressberg here.