Officer Killed

[ls317]

SHELBYVILLE -- Authorities have announced that the officer killed overnight in a roadside accident was Gary Henderson, 51, a 29-year veteran of the Shelbyville Police Department whose son, Kyle, is also on the force.

Henderson had stopped to help a Shelby County deputy who had pulled over two suspects in a stolen vehicle on I-74 near Ind. 44 at about 11:40 p.m.


That's when two wheels came off a passing semi as it changed lanes to avoid the cars on the shoulder. The wheels hit Henderson.

Investigators don't yet know why the wheels came off.

The Zone Express truck was driven by driver Michal Prerovsky, 34, of Berwyn, Ill. He is cooperating with police at this point. The truck was heading east out of Chicago with a load of packing peanuts.

"What we did notice was there was no grease in the hub," said Shelbyville Police Chief Bill Elliott in a press conference this morning. "I don't know if it just ran dry and it just came loose.

"It is unusual, but not highly unusual," for a truck to lose a wheel, Elliott said.

Henderson was working as a patrolman and about 20 minutes from the end of his shift Wednesday night when the accident happened. At one time he was chief of detectives and a narcotics investigator for the department.

He was the first Shelbyville officer to die in the line of duty.

Flags in the town are flying are at half-staff today.

[Bucky]

1. Damn.

What a terrible loss of life for a family that's serving their community.

[TomInTib]

2. How awful. Just wait until those Mexican trucks start rolling down our highways.

I was involved in a truck-tire accident in Dallas.

We were the second car stopped at a light on the access road at Stemmons and Market Center Blvd when a wheel and tire off of an 18wheeler came sailing through the air over the guardrail on Stemmons.

We were in a Lincoln Continental (back when they were BIG), and I remember thinking that I sure was glad that I was in the back seat.

That damned wheel landed so hard on the hood of that Lincoln that the car was totalled.

[DS1]

3. Gotta be frightening

A) You know you were driving something that just killed someone
B) He was a cop, so you know you're in a for a rough ride