Funeral ( click on link below )
Canine Officer, Robert Langley, 30, of Oxford died on 10/21/06 during a motor vehicle stop involving a student of the University of Mississippi. Officer Michelle Thompson and Officer Robert Langley were setting up to catch speeders on campus. Officer Langley radioed Officer Thompson that he had clocked a black Ford F-150 doing 40 in an 18 mph zone. Officer Thompson had stopped Daniel Reed Cummings, 20, a second-year sophomore liberal arts major student, about 2 a.m. for speeding westbound on Fraternity Row. The driver, stopped on Jackson Avenue and Officer Thompson approached the vehicle and asked for his drivers license. Officer Langley approached from the other side and began looking with a flashlight in the truck cab. Cummings handed over his drivers license while Officer Thompson continued to talk to him. Officer Thompson asked Cummings for his proof of insurance. He opened the truck’s door and stood out, then reached as though he was reaching for the glove compartment, jumped in the truck quickly pulling away. Officer Langley reached into the truck while Cummings drove off down Jackson Street with Langley running beside the truck. Langley attempted to hold on as the truck approached the intersection of Jackson and Hathorn streets as the truck accelerated and swerved dragging Officer Langley about 200 yards. Langley suffered severe head injuries and was taken by helicopter to Regional Medical Center in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead about 11 a.m. Langley, a four-year veteran of the 30-officer department, also served in the Mississippi Army National Guard and recently became a canine officer and certified his police K9 “Truus”. He returned in April after a tour in Afghanistan as a field artillery man with the Guard’s 1st Battalion of the 114th Artillery. and is the first University of Mississippi officer killed in the line of duty. Langley was a 4-year veteran of the University Police Department. Oxford police found the vehicle in town about 20 minutes later and soon after found Cummings a couple of miles away at his off-campus apartment. Langley is survived by wife, Lisa, two sons and two stepdaughters.
Daniel Reed Cummings, who is from Germantown, Tenn., has been charged with capital murder. He was being held without bond in the Lafayette County Detention Center. If convicted, Cummings could face the death penalty for capital murder of a police officer. A background check by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations revealed that a man by the same name and address as Cummings had been arrested twice in that state for vandalism. and cited for speeding in a school zone. The vandalism arrests were made on June 1, 2005 and March 31, 2005, and expunged from the record in July, officials said. There was a probationary period, and at the end of that period parts of that probation were met and a judge signed off on it. During the bond hearing on November 8, 2006, prosecutors
On October 15, 2007, Daniel Reed Cummings was sentenced to 20 years in prison under a plea agreement reached on the weekend before his trial with prosecutors and Langley’s widow, Lisa, and the officer’s parents. The plea was made before Lafayette County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Howorth. The court accepted the prosecutors recommendation that Cummings also be ordered to pay court costs and he will receive credit for the year he has already spent in the Lafayette County Detention Center and will be required to serve 85 percent of his sentence which would be 17 years. After his guilty plea, Cummings wanted to address Langley’s widow, but she indicated that she did not want to hear from him.
