HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas prisoner was executed Wednesday evening for killing a game warden during a shootout in 2007.
James Freeman, 35, was pronounced dead at 6:30 p.m., 16 minutes after a doctor lethally injected him at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.
He did not have any last words.
In March 2007, Freeman led police on a chase, with speeds reaching 130 mph, after he was suspected of illegal hunting in Wharton County.
After Freeman's pickup truck was disabled, he jumped out and engaged in a shootout with officers, killing Justin Hurst. It was Hurst’s 34th birthday.
Hurst left behind a wife and infant son.
Freeman’s mother, father, brother and sister-in-law attended the execution, as well as four of Hurst’s friends.
“He was not simply an officer of the state, he was a husband, father, son and brother, whose life was unnecessarily taken from this world,” said Col. Craig Hunter of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
About 100 members of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department stood outside during the execution to pay their respects to Hurst.
“To the game wardens, these men and women provided so much support to my family and I really can never repay that,” Hurst’s brother, Greg Hurst, told reporters after the execution.
Former members of law enforcement agencies revved their engines during the execution, which could be heard from inside the execution chamber.
Freeman is the second inmate to be put to death in Texas so far in 2016. There are eight more executions scheduled through July.