FAIRFIELD, Texas -- State Trooper Damon Allen wanted to be "the guy that people turned to when they needed help," a close friend said Friday. "That's just the way he was built."
The trooper died on Thanksgiving Day after being shot near Fairfield in Freestone County during a traffic stop by a man later identified by police as Dabrett Black, 32, of Lindale.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said Thursday that "preliminary information" indicated Allen was shot with a rifle as he returned to his patrol vehicle. Black fled the scene and was captured in Waller County, nearly five hours into a massive manhunt for him was announced by Texas authorities.
Black was charged with capital murder on Friday and is being held in the Brazos County jail in Bryan.
Allen is the first Trooper to die in a shooting incident since 2008, according to the DPS. But his death comes only a few weeks after another DPS trooper, Thomas Nipper, was struck and killed by a pickup truck during a traffic stop on Interstate 35 in Temple.
Allen, 41, grew up around Mexia and was a 15-year veteran of the Highway Patrol. He married his high school sweetheart, Kasey Allen, in 1993 and they had three children: daughter Kaitlyn, in her early twenties, 18-year-old son Cameron and daughter Madison, who is in third grade.
"I'd say he was a family man first and a friend second, and a cop third, probably," Bell said.
Allen loved going to Galveston to spend time on the beach, Bell said. He also loved driving his Jeep, and he'd play golf whenever he got the chance.
"He was the definition of a gentleman," Bell said. "He was fair and polite with everyone he came in contact with. He treated everyone like they were a friend."
In August, Allen was given a DPS Lifesaving Award for saving a Wortham man's life. When a woman called 911 because her husband was having a heart attack, Allen overheard the call and responded, then gave the man CPR for several minutes before medical responders arrived.
Afterward, Allen didn't even mention it to his closest friends, Bell said. "As close as we were, I had to hear about that from somebody else."
A family friend started an online fundraiser that had raised more than $2,000 Friday afternoon, and the nonprofit 100 Club pledged $20,000 to Allen's wife and children. Executive director Rick Hartley said the group, which supports dependents of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, will meet with the family to figure out how to "wipe out their debt" and send his children to college.
Meanwhile, flags were lowered to half-staff Friday in Mexia and all of Limestone County.
"I think everybody is still trying to process this and how needless this really is," said Randy Barnes, a retired Department of Public Safety sergeant who was Allen's supervisor early in the trooper's career. Barnes used to go out on "check rides" with the new troopers to observe them in action, he said.
"Damon was one of those guys that I actually looked forward to going out and riding with," he said. "He was funny, but he did his job and he did it well. From the very start, he just knew how to do his job."
It's not always easy for a trooper to return to his hometown straight out of recruit school, Barnes said; it can be difficult for them to enforce the law in a place where they know almost everyone.
"But he was a rare type of guy," Barnes said. "He just had such a strong character and a lot of integrity. We knew that if he came back to Mexia, there weren't going to be any issues."
Before he became a state trooper in 2002, Bell said, Allen worked as a correctional officer at the Boyd prison unit outside Fairfield.
"He'd be helping people whether or not he wore a badge, but that was the venue that called him," Bell said. "He was doing what he loved, and that was protecting people."
Black was charged with capital murder on Friday and is being held in the Brazos County jail in Bryan.
Black apparently fled the shooting in a gray 2012 Chevrolet Malibu, and authorities caught up with him in Waller County, where they fired some shots at him. He fled on foot and authorities followed him for more than an hour.
The Thursday traffic stop was not Black's first violent encounter with law enforcement.
Smith County Court records show that the Lindale native was indicted by a Grand Jury there last month for aggravated assault against a public servant and evading arrest, both felonies.
He had previously served jail time after pleading guilty to a separate, 2015 assault on a public servant, court records show.
His family did not respond to calls for comment Friday.
Law enforcement officers know that any routine traffic stop can turn deadly, Barnes said, but he believes the risk to their lives is greater now than ever before.
"We would have meetings and talk about officer safety all the time," he said. "We'd go over those scenarios. And you just pray that it never, ever happens — but it does, and you know that's reality."
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