Police Brutality / Individual record
Joseph Thompson Johnson-Shanks
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Joseph Thompson Johnson-Shanks in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2015-09-14 in Princeton, KY. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-262
- Incident date
- September 14, 2015
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Princeton, KY
- Agency
- Kentucky State Police
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 25
What happened
Joseph Thomas Johnson-Shanks, 25, was shot and killed by a Kentucky State Police response team on September 14, 2015, after a manhunt following the fatal shooting of Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder. The night before, Ponder stopped Johnson-Shanks on Interstate 24 and determined that none of the adults in the car held a valid driver's license. Police said Ponder was arranging accommodations for the travelers, including two children, when the driver fled; they later reported Johnson-Shanks fired through his car window and killed the trooper. A special response team subsequently located him in woods and shot him after police said he raised a firearm. These are the official accounts of two deaths; the underlying events were not tried after Johnson-Shanks died.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 828
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- gun
- Flee status (source)
- car
- Agency IDs (source)
- 130
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset