Nineteen years after a North Richland Hills police officer was shot in the line of duty, a suspect is named. However, he will never be brought to justice.
On March 3rd, 2003, Officer Jeff Garner was shot during a traffic stop by a man who, unbeknownst to Garner, had just robbed a bank in Watauga.
Garner survived and is now a captain with the department.
His shooter, however, remained at large.
North Richland Hills Detective Erik Whitlock was assigned the case in 2015 after it sat cold for many years.
Using evidence related to the incident, Whitlock determined that the shooter was linked to seven bank robberies between 1998 and 2003.
In 2019, Whitlock submitted DNA data collected from those bank robberies to Identifinders International for a forensic genealogy examination.
The firm told the department that the source of the DNA was Mark Alan Long, and he was named as the suspect in Garner's shooting.
In February of this year, undercover detectives traveled to Oklahoma and started surveillance on Long.
They obtained DNA from items he used while dining at a restaurant, and that DNA matched the DNA collected from the bank robberies.
Earlier this month, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation obtained search warrants for Long's home, vehicle and a previously-owned Jeep believed to have been used in the Watauga bank robbery.
Agents found a revolver inside Long's house, and it closely matched the description of the gun used to shoot Garner.
Agents located the Jeep and found it to have body filler repair on the tailgate.
The damage was consistent with that of a bullet hole -- in this case, the return fire from Garner.
With the overwhelming evidence, investigators secured four arrest warrants for Long -- attempted capital murder of a peace officer, aggravated robbery, and two counts of robbery.
However, as police closed in on Long, they learned that he was found dead near a cell tower in southeast Oklahoma City.
While evidence from that scene leads detectives to believe that he took his own life, the final determination will be made by the Oklahoma medical examiner.
Garner and others will be discussing the case in a news conference Friday morning.
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