HUTCHINSON COUNTY, Texas – Hutchinson County Sheriff Kirk Coker was killed in a traffic crash late Sunday evening, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The crash occurred around 11:50 p.m. on State Highway 136 about one-mile east of Fritch.
DPS said his vehicle drifted off the roadway, went into a ditch and then crashed through a barbed wire fence.
The vehicle then continued through a field and crashed into a tree.
He was pronounced deceased at the scene.
A medical episode is suspected as being the cause of the crash, DPS said.
An autopsy has been ordered by the Justice of the Peace.
Coker, 57, had served as the county’s sheriff for a little over three years.
Hutchinson County is located in the Texas Panhandle northeast of Amarillo.
