A police officer in Big Stone Gap, Va., was fatally shot Saturday while conducting a welfare check at a house there, state police said.

       Officer Michael Chandler was on duty shortly after 4 a.m. when asked to make the check on someone at a vacant house, state police said.

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       He was shot during the encounter and found unconscious in a ditch along the driveway, according to police.

       The town’s police chief, Stephen Hamm, said the officer died Saturday night at a hospital.

       A 33-year-old man from Big Stone Gap was taken into custody Saturday night in Kingsport, Tenn., after an investigation and search, state police said. He was being held on charges of probation violation from South Carolina and Wise County, Va., according to state police.

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       As of late Sunday no charges had been made in connection with the shooting and state police did not release the man’s name.

       Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) released a statement Sunday calling Chandler, 29, “a dedicated public servant, a devoted husband and father” and someone who “put his life on the line every day in service to his fellow Virginians.”

       Big Stone Gap, a town of about 5,700 in Wise County in southwest Virginia, is about 425 miles from Washington.