[citation needed] Around 11:36 a.m. CDT, a white Plymouth Voyager minivan traveling east on Interstate 40 toward Airport Road was pulled over by West Memphis police officer Bill Evans.
[3] According to a spokesperson for the Arkansas State Police, Officer Evans was "running drug interdiction"; the vehicle, driven by Jerry Kane, had unusual Ohio license plates.
[7] Approximately 2 hours after the incident, Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Chief Enforcement Officer W. A. Wren stopped a minivan believed to be the suspects' at a Walmart Supercenter.
[3] Wildlife Officer Michael K. Neal, responding to the brief standoff, rammed the suspect's vehicle, preventing their escape and saving the lives of Busby and Wren.
[1] A lifelong resident of Ohio,[12] Jerry Kane ran a debt elimination business and traveled the country giving paid seminars on methods of "forestalling foreclosures",[13] lecturing that money and home loans are fictitious, and that people can simply sign a quitclaim deed and live in their houses mortgage-free.
[4] According to his girlfriend, Kane's resentment of the government began in the late 1990s, when one of his daughters died at the age of six weeks of infant death syndrome and an autopsy was performed against his wishes.
Kane grew distrustful of authorities, gave up his driver's license and employment as a trucker, and became increasingly antagonistic toward Ohio law enforcement.
According to Kelly, Kane had complained about being "enslaved" by a judge who had sentenced him to serve six days of community service for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt.
[1] In 2006, Kane was indicted for forgery and theft of a car by deception in Montgomery County, Ohio, and there was an outstanding warrant at the time of his death.
"[13] Jerry Kane had recently begun a relationship with a Florida woman whom he had met at one of his seminars,[17] and who also adhered to sovereign citizen ideology: shortly before the shooting, she had been involved in a protracted legal battle with her county of residence because she refused to pay a $20 dog-licensing fee.
[4] Jerry Kane was unsuccessful as a motivational speaker; his seminars were sparsely attended[4][16] and he had not gained much notoriety in the sovereign citizen environment.