W.V. State Police via Reuters

Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37, is seen in this undated handout photo released by the West Virginia State Police.

A man alleged to have shot and killed a West Virginia sheriff on April 3 should have been barred from owning a gun, but got his hands on a weapon after his background check was delayed by "kinks in the chain" a county prosecutor said.

Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was sitting in his parked police SUV eating lunch when Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37, allegedly shot him twice using a .40 caliber Glock handgun, police have said.

"It was a federal and state violation for him to possess a firearm, and he possessed other firearms also," Mingo County Prosecuting Attorney C. Michael Sparks told NBC News. Sparks declined to say what on Maynard's record prohibited him from owning the gun with which he allegedly shot Crum.

"The dealer did what was legally required under the law," Sparks said. "The disqualifying event ... it was not in the federal database when the gun was purchased. There was a delay in the time period between the triggering event and the information being reported to the federal database."

A separate, subsequent attempt by Maynard to buy a firearm failed when the background check system flagged him, Sparks said.

Sparks said West Virginia has “one of the more sophisticated systems in America as far as reporting this type of information.”

Maynard fled from the alleged shooting, police said, but was stopped when his car crashed into a bridge. After raising his gun to a pursuing deputy, Maynard was shot. He was transported to a hospital and authorities have said he is recovering from his injuries. Maynard has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Williamson Daily News via AP

This undated photo shows Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum. Crum was gunned down Wednesday, April 3, 2013.

Maynard had spent time in a mental institution and “the same problem was eating him again,” his father told The Associated Press. Federal law prohibits the sale of guns to people who have been adjudicated mentally defective or spent time in an institution.

“He would have probably shot anybody, the first one he come to, you know what I’m saying,” Maynard's dad, Melvin, said. “I know he was off, I know he should have been in a hospital.”

A funeral for Crum, 59, at Mingo Central High School on Sunday was attended by close to 400 law enforcement officers who remembered the sheriff for his efforts to combat Mingo County’s drug trade.

“We ask all the time where have all the heroes gone?” Mingo County Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury said in a eulogy, according to the AP. “Let me tell you, sometimes we walk in their midst and we don’t know we got them. He was mine.”

Crum’s wife, Rosie, was appointed to fill her husband’s position as interim sheriff on April 4. The county’s first female sheriff, she was sworn in during a candlelight vigil honoring her husband.

The news that Maynard never should have been able to buy a gun came Wednesday as Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat, proposed a bipartisan deal with Sen. Patrick Toomey that would expand background checks and strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by refusing some federal funds to stats that fail to submit full records. The NICS was established in 1993 by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

Randy Snyder / AP

Members of the honor guard carry the body of the late Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum on Sunday, April 7, 2013, at the Mingo Central High School in Matewan, W.Va.

Related:

• Dad: W. Va. sheriff slaying suspect mentally 'off'
• West Virginia sheriff slain while eating lunch in car
• West Virginia sheriff shot dead, suspect wounded

WILLIAMSON, W.Va. - A drug-fighting West Virginia sheriff was shot to death as he ate lunch in his car on Wednesday and the suspected gunman was wounded and captured after a chase, police said.

Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was at a parking lot in the city of Williamson when a man ran up and shot him, then fled in his own vehicle, Williamson Police Chief Dave Rockel said at a news conference.

Authorities identified the suspect as Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37, of Ragland, West Virginia.

Maynard fled south on U.S. Route 52 about 8 miles when his vehicle crashed into a bridge, said Captain Dave Nelson of the West Virginia State Police.

After the crash, Maynard got out of his vehicle, raised his weapon and was shot by a Mingo County sheriff's deputy, Nelson said.

Police officials did not say how seriously Maynard was injured. He was taken to a hospital in Logan, West Virginia, and then flown by helicopter to another hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, police said.

Williamson Daily News via AP

Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum.

The shooting followed other recent attacks on law enforcement officials in the United States, including the killings of two prosecutors in Texas and the Colorado prisons chief.

Williamson is a coal-mining town of about 3,000 people in southwestern West Virginia.

Crum, a former magistrate, took office as sheriff at the beginning of the year. He had launched a campaign called "Zero Tolerance" to clamp down on local drug trafficking, which centers on illegal prescription drugs.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said 28 officers had been killed in the line of duty in the United States since April 3, 2012, including 13 killed with firearms.

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 3:54 AM EDT

Rick Lee / Office of the Mayor

Charleston, W.V., Mayor Danny Jones issued a statement saying he was "relieved" when his son was arrested on a drug charge and asked law enforcement to treat him the same as anyone else.

A West Virginia mayor issued an extraordinary statement Thursday after his son was arrested on cocaine charges, saying he was "relieved" and begging law-enforcement not to go easy on him.

"I know that the only things that might save his life are isolation and yes, incarceration," Charleston Mayor Danny Jones wrote in an email to reporters after his 23-year-old son Zachary was busted for the third time in five years.

"If in jail or prison, I know that Zac has a better chance at living than on the outside. This is because Zac is a hopeless drug addict who has broken the heart and the will of everyone and anyone who has tried to help him," the statement continued.

Jones told NBC News that it was "heartbreaking" to write those words, but he believes tough love is the only answer for his son. He said his son's mother had custody of him growing up but that he also had a close relationship with him.

Charleston, W.V., police department

Zachary Jones, son of the mayor of Charleston, W.V., was arrested Thursday on a drug charge. His father said he was relieved and thinks jail will save his life.

"I've done everything a parent could do to try and help him," he said. "He's been detoxed at least a half-dozen times and I paid to put him through rehab twice."

Charleston police confirmed that Zachary Jones was arrested for driving under the influence in 2008, pleaded guilty and was fined $100. He was arrested for heroin possession in 2011; the case was dismissed after he completed rehab and agreed to enter the military, which he failed to do, his lawyer said.

On Thursday morning, police conducting a traffic stop arrested Jones, along with a 24-year-old Detroit man, and charged both with possession of an ounce of cocaine with intent to deliver, according to the criminal complaint.

The young man is being held in the local jail in lieu of $25,000 bond.

William Forbes, an attorney who represented the son in the heroin case and was retained again Thursday, said his client told him "he loves his father and understands" why he made the statement.

“He’s a really, really nice kid with a really bad addiction problem,” Forbes said, adding that he counseled his client to stay in jail for the moment. “The mayor loves in his son very much.”

When the younger Jones was escorted by officers out of the police station, his father, the assistant mayor and the police chief stood in a line and stared at him.

"I could tell from his body language -- he hung his head and kind of shook his head -- that he was maybe embarrassed," said Police Chief Brent Webster.

Webster said the mayor had spoken to him in the past about his son's drug problem.

"He's told me, 'I don't want to get a call at two in the morning that he's been killed. I'd rather hear he's in jail," the police chief said.

The mayor said that in 2011, a friend bailed his son out of jail. He hopes that doesn't happen this time.

"I plead with those in the law-enforcement, judicial and jail and prison system to treat my son no better or worse than any other defendant," he said in his statement. "My son does not need anyone to save him from taking this life-saving fall."

The mayor, who said he has been sober for 19 years, said he hopes his statement will be a "moment of clarity" for his son and inspire other parents facing a similar situation to take action.

He said he also wanted to make it clear that he has never tried to use his position to get his son off the hook.

Asked whether some people might find his comments harsh, he said, "I don't care. Anybody who thinks it's really harsh hasn't dealt with this on a personal basis."

"I think the only place that's safe for him is jail, and I'm sorry to say it," he added.

Updated at 6:45 p.m. ET: A gas line explosion rocked the town of Sissonville, W.Va., Tuesday, setting off an inferno that burned multiple homes, damaged and closed a portion of the freeway, and knocked out power and phone lines to some residents — but remarkably, took no lives.

The blast, which was reported at about 12:40 p.m. PT in Sissonville, a community of about 4,000 people located 10 miles north of Charleston.

Flames shot some 100 feet in the air and hopped the main north-south arterial Interstate 77, as emergency responders scrambled to cap the ruptured gas line — a 20-inch transmission line owned by Columbia Gas — and bring the blaze under control.

The blaze destroyed four homes and damaged at least five others, WSAZ-TV, the NBC station in Huntington, W. Va. reported, citing county officials. 

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin told reporters at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that several people were  transported from the scene for smoke inhalation-related injuries. But he said emergency crews had concluded there were no deaths and everyone had been accounted for. 

Earlier, an official said that the blast was near the Cedar Ridge Health Care Center, a senior-assisted nursing home. Metro 911 dispatchers said that the nursing home was not on fire, and its residents are not in danger.

WSAZ-TV

A section of I-77 near Sissonville, W. Va, on Tuesday after a gas explosion rocked the area. The flames shot more than 100 feet in the air, and jumped the highway caused the asphalt top to crumble.

Tomblin said that the area within 1,000 feet of the explosion site has been evacuated.

A fiber optic cable was also damaged in the blast, affecting phone service in several states, according to WSAZ.

Local officials said that some 1,600 local residents had been directly affected, either by losing power or because they had to take a 50 mile detour around the closed highway.

Columbia Gas confirmed that one of its transmission lines was the source of the explosion.

"The site where the incident occurred has been secured and the fire has been contained," according to Chevalier Mayes, communications manager for the company. "There were residents near where the explosion occurred. Columbia Gas employees and first responders are working to assess the situation and accommodate the residents. Columbia Gas is still working to determine the cause of the explosion."

Tuesday evening, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that it was sending a crew to investigate the blast and fires in Sissonville. The team was to travel to West Virginia Tuesday night and be on the scene Wednesday, the federal agency said.

Meantime state transportation officials were dispatching crews to repair damage to an 800-foot stretch of I-77.

WSAZ-TV

A suspected gas line explosion rocked an area near Sissonville, W.Va., on Tuesday.

"The road is not melted," said Brent Walker, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, correcting reports by multiple outlets, including NBC News. Speaking to NBC-station WBOY in Clarksburg, W.Va., Walker said the heat had caused the asphalt surface to crumble when the road was engulfed in flame.  

The highway was closed and traffic was being diverted.

Walker said crews will be working to resurface the highway as soon as they can get through and may get traffic moving through as soon as this evening.

Officials of a plant in the vicinity of the blast, NGK Spark Plugs, said that they had shut down for at least two work shifts, according to the report.

Residents in the area, including children at Sissonville Elementary school had been told to remain inside, according to WSAZ. Later, school officials were arranging buses to take students across Sissonville to their homes.

For residents who lost their homes or could not get home, Aldersgate Methodist Church in Sissonville opened as a shelter for the night, according to Metro 911, an emergency website provided by the county's emergency responders.

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Jason Cohn / Reuters

First year apprentice ironworker George Vacheresse pauses during a class at Ironworkers Local 539 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Vacheresse was a steelworker for 17 years but decided to retrain after watching layoffs erode the workforce at his machinist shop over 17 years. He hopes his new skills will lead to a much higher-paying job.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

The town of Wheeling, West Virginia is emblematic of the economically struggling region it sits in, and could get a big boost from a new Shell chemical plant planned for the area. Real estate agents, restaurants, banks and others report a business jump that they expect to be made permanent by the arrival of chemical plants.

Reuters reports from Wheeling, West Virginia — In George Vacheresse's lifetime, Appalachia has fallen from its prime when steel mills and coal mines anchored middle-class communities and offered hope there always would be enough work to go around.

In this historically poor region nestled in the misty mountains of the eastern United States, most steel mills shut down long ago and the coal workforce has shrunk by 90 percent in the past 40 years.

Now Vacheresse and other residents are counting on cheap natural gas from the massive reserves in the Marcellus and Utica shale rock formations to reinvigorate the region's economy.

In the Northern Appalachia area alone, where West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania converge, billions of dollars of investment is planned by major companies, including most recently Royal Dutch Shell, to recover the gas and build new chemical plants.

"I hope it gives us jobs for everybody," said Vacheresse, 39, who last fall joined an apprentice scheme at a Wheeling, iron workers' labor union to learn how to work in steel construction. He made the move after watching layoffs erode the workforce at his machinist shop over 17 years. He expects his new skills will lead to a much higher-paying job building Shell's planned new $2 billion cracker, industry slang for a chemical plant.

"Something like this could carry our region for years and years," he said. Read the full story.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

Charles Comas, owner of Comas Family Barber Shop on Main Street in Wheeling, West Virginia, finishes giving a hair cut to regular customer John Oliver on March 6, 2012. Oliver, who has lived in Wheeling his whole life, remembers when the now sparsely occupied downtown was so packed with people "you couldn't walk down the street without bumping into someone." He is skeptical that the burgeoning shale gas industry or the rumoured Shell cracker plant will help the city.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

A community garden is seen in a vacant lot left over from one of few demolished buildings on Main Street in Wheeling, West Virginia. The city is struggling to find creative ways to deal with their down economy while waiting for new investment.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

First year Ironworker apprentices (left-right) Ian Welshhans, Daniel Truax and Jason Taylor practice their welding skills during a class at the Ironworkers Local 549 training facility in Wheeling, West Virginia on March 6, 2012.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

An old Ohio Edison electric plant, rumored to be the site for the first new U.S. chemical cracker plant in more than 20 years, is seen across the Ohio river from Moundsville, West Virginia.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Jeff Gentner / AP

Emergency vehicles leave the entrance to Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Coal Mine in April 2010 in Montcoal, W.Va. after an explosion at the underground coal mine.

The owner of a West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men will pay nearly $210 million in a historic settlement arising from the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in decades.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin announced the settlement Tuesday, calling it a "revolutionary resolution" that is the largest of a criminal investigation into a U.S. mine disaster.

As part of the agreement, Alpha Natural Resources will not be charged with crimes but individuals still could face criminal prosecution. Alpha acquired Massey Energy after the explosion at Upper Big Branch.

The agreement includes more than $46 million in criminal restitution to the miners' families and $35 million in penalties for all Massey violations, including $11 million for Upper Big Branch. Another $128 million will fund cutting-edge mine safety upgrades.

Among the improvements will be digital equipment to monitor air flow and the presence of explosive methane and coal dust, reported the Charleston Gazette.

"We think that these requirements set a new standard for what can and should be in place to protect coal miners," Goodwin told the Gazette.

Alpha will also create a $48 million trust for mine safety research at academic institutions, the Gazette reported.

News of the settlement came hours before the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was expected to release its findings into the April 2010 mine explosion.

The MSHA report will be the third report on the disaster, and echoes previous findings by an independent investigator and safety experts with the United Mine Workers, according to the Gazette. All three investigations conclude a spark ignited methane gas and a massive accumulation of explosive coal dust. Malfunctioning water sprayers allowed what could have been a small flare-up to become an epic blast that traveled seven miles of underground corridors, doubling back on itself and killing the men instantly.

MSHA will share its findings in a press conference scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.

• Slideshow: 2010 mine blast in West Virginia

The Associated Press contributed to this report.