Police Say No Foul Play Involved in Former CPD Officer's Death

A former Chattanooga police officer was found dead near his truck Monday evening after police were called to a Harris Hills address on a “traffic accident” call.

According to a press release from the East Ridge Police Department, officers responded to a call in the 400 block of Bluebird Circle in the early evening. On arrival, officers located a pickup truck, still running, up against a sedan. The crash occurred at the top of the driveway and appeared to be deliberate.

Officials said that police also located the driver of the truck, identified as 46-year-old Todd Thomas Royval, lying beside the truck bleeding from the head, deceased. A handgun was found in close proximity to the body.

The release states that no foul play is suspected, but the investigation is ongoing.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.