BOSSIER CITY, La. – The man shot dead by police officers on Saturday after a high-speed chase and crash was armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle.
Jason Michael Mattingly Jr., 31, of Shreveport, got out of his wrecked truck and aimed a gun before dozens of shots were fired. The gun looked like a real AR-15. State police described it as a fully automatic CO2-powered Crossman DPMS AR-15 style BB rifle.
Mattingly died at the scene. Neither officers nor deputies were injured.
Booking photo of Jason Michael Mattingly Jr. from the August 2021 arrest.
The Louisiana State Police are leading the investigation because three different law enforcement agencies were involved in the shooting.
The pursuit of Mattingly began in Haughton and ended on East Texas Street in Bossier City. Mattingly was wanted on pending domestic violence warrants involving child endangerment and strangulation. A Haughton police officer recognized him and attempted to stop him in Haughton.
But Mattingly sped away, and Bossier’s sheriff’s deputies got in pursuit down US Highway 80, laying down spiked stripes. Mattingly’s GMC truck had flat tires, but he kept going.
The Bossier City Police Department joined the pursuit. Mattingly crashed into several civilian vehicles at Airline and East Texas – no one was injured – before losing control and overturning his truck near the Benton Road intersection.
At that moment, “Mattingly stood up and aimed a gun,” Sheriff Julian Whittington said at the scene. Officers from all three law enforcement agencies fired their service weapons, state police said.
About two dozen bullet holes were counted in the windscreen and even more in the body of Mattingly’s overturned truck. At least 92 evidence markers were seen on the roadway.
The Bossier Township Sheriff’s Office, the Bossier City Police Department and the Haughton Police Department on Friday released the names of the police officers involved in the shooting. They include:
- • cpl. Bryan Sprankle – Bossier Sheriff’s Office, 8-year veteran assigned to patrol
- • Officer Richard Pollitt – BCPD, 2 1/2 year veteran, assigned to K-9
- • Officer Gregory Russell – BCPD, 4-year veteran assigned to patrol
- • Officer Matthew Boyd – BCPD, 2-year veteran assigned to patrol
- • Officer Marcus Green – BCPD, 1 year Veteran assigned to Patrol
- • Officer Patrick Edmonds – Haughton PD, 5 year veteran assigned to patrol.
Mattingly has run away from the police before. In March 2016, he was charged with aggravated flight from an officer, endangering lives. That’s one of seven charges, filed in two separate arrests, that have appeared in Mattingly’s record in Bossier District Court since 2014.
Mattingly pleaded guilty to the flight charge and was sentenced in January 2018 to five years in prison, with time served counting.
More recently, however, Mattingly was pending in Caddo Township on a second-degree cruelty-to-juvenile charge from an August 2021 arrest. He last appeared in court in January when he waived a jury trial.
His case went to trial this month. No details were available in Caddo District Court records as the case involved a juvenile.
Other charges in Bossier attached to the aggravated flight arrest include hit-and-run, simple burglary of a vehicle and operating a vehicle without a license.
He was also charged in July 2014 with two counts of drug offenses and theft of a vehicle.
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