By LEONARD GRAY

Managing Editor

LAPLACE — An 11-hour ordeal, which began with a traffic stop near the Waffle House in LaPlace and ended two parishes away with the surrender of a Texas fugitive, resulted in the murder of Capt. Octavio &#8220Ox” Gonzalez, a 14-year veteran of the St. John Parish Sheriff’s Office and commander of the Narcotics Division, and the wounding of a second St. John officer.

On Monday, suspect Johnnie Lee Cheek, 31, was booked at the Sherman Walker Correctional Center with first-degree murder of a police officer, two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer, and armed robbery.

He was charged on Friday in Jefferson Parish with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon, armed robbery, aggravated burglary, three counts of second-degree kidnapping and three counts of possession of stolen property.

His companion, Crystal Lynn Reed, was charged in Jefferson Parish with armed robbery with use of a firearm, two counts of possession of stolen property and three counts of second-degree kidnapping.

She will likewise be booked in St. John Parish as a principal to the murder of Gonzalez and attempted murder of Detective Monty Adams.

&#8220It was a tough 24 hours in the metro area,” Capt. James Gallagher of the Kenner Police Department observed.

&#8220It’s been a tough week,” later observed St. John Parish Sheriff Wayne L. Jones.

It all began at 1:12 a.m., when Detective Monty Adams with the St. John Parish Narcotics Division, accompanied by Tangipahoa Deputy Keith Womack, were working a drug interdiction on Interstate 10.

A dark vehicle driving erratically caught their attention and they attempted to make a traffic stop on the Mazda Millineum, pulling off onto U.S. 51 in front of Waffle House.

Before Adams could exit his unit, the suspect opened fire three times, hitting Adams once in the left thigh, and drove away. Adams, despite his painful wound, attempted to pursue but lost him in the darkness and his partner Womack got him to River Parishes Hospital.

Meanwhile, backup units

were responding, and Gonzalez, on his way to reach Adams, alerted the dispatcher of his whereabouts in the Spring Meadows subdivision to assist in the pursuit.

At 1:48 a.m., the St. John 911 dispatcher received a call from an unidentified resident in the area of a man dragging the body of another man in the street on Pampas Drive. Units responded and located Gonzalez’s body. He had been hit three times, initially in the back. He had not been wearing a safety vest. The couple made off with Gonzalez’s Ford Expedition.

In Kenner, the couple pulled off at the Loyola exit, turned right and right again, soon becoming bewildered as to their whereabouts. At this point, they wrecked Gonzalez’s vehicle in the Grand Lakes Subdivision area.

There, Reed knocked on a resident’s door, claiming to have been a crime victim and wanting to use a telephone. When the 81-year-old woman answered the door, Cheek ambushed her and the couple made their way inside, knocking down the resident.

They tied up the woman, her daughter and 12-year-old grandson, and fled in a silver Nissan Altima.

The pursuit took the couple into uptown New Orleans in the vicinity of Tulane University, and back down Jefferson Highway to River Ridge. There, the Altima was wrecked into a deep drainage ditch near Joy Street in River Ridge, and the couple attempted to flee on foot.

Reed was quickly apprehended at 3:11 a.m., but Cheek made his way to 124 Joy Street, the home of 81-year-old Clifford Lala. Inside, Cheek bound and gagged Lala, while a host of law enforcement agencies and personnel converged on the scene.

Gallagher said the agencies involved included St. John, St. Charles, Tangipahoa, Jefferson and Ascension sheriff’s offices, Kenner, Harahan and New Orleans police, Louisiana State Police, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, State Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, FBI, state Probation and Parole officers, state Department of Corrections (who brought a K-9 squad), Immigration and Customs Enforcement, East Jefferson Levee District and a helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard.

During the standoff, a robot was used to get a telephone to Cheek and, with the help of Cheek’s father, his surrender was negotiated. Cheek came out and lay on the ground at 11:58 a.m.

Cheek had fled the Houston, Texas area, failing to appear for court on a theft charge of 48,000 pounds of copper according to Jones.