March 20 (UPI) — A federal grand jury on Thursday charged a St. Louis man in the fatal shooting of an Illinois state trooper last year.
The St. Louis grand jury returned an eight-count indictment against Christopher Grant, 46, including a charge for using a firearm to shoot and kill Illinois state trooper Nicholas Hopkins, 33, the Department of Justice said.
Grant was charged with three counts of distribution of crack cocaine, maintaining a drug house, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, use of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, use of a firearm to commit murder in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and possession of a firearm by a felon.
The shooting took place Aug. 23, and Grant has been held in state custody on first-degree murder charges since.
Hopkins was killed during a shootout while executing a search warrant with other SWAT team members in a residential neighborhood in east St. Louis.
He was the first Illinois State Police trooper shot and killed since Virgil Lee Bensyl died attempting to arrest a suspect in 1988.
