By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--November 22, 2017
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The shooting happened just after 8 p.m. Friday, when Shaw tried to pull over an SUV. Holt, who was the passenger, jumped out of the moving vehicle and Shaw ran after him, according to an affidavit. A surveillance footage shows Holt running to a nearby parking lot, where authorities said he shot Shaw. Peck said Holt fired six shots, striking Shaw multiple times. The officer, who was wearing a vest, was able to radio to the 911 center that he had been shot. He tried to stand up before he fell down and was not able to return fire, Peck told reporters. The surveillance footage shows Holt running toward the back of a building and into an alley after he shot Shaw, the affidavit said.
The 25-year-old officer, who had been with the New Kensington Police Department for less than a year, died at a hospital less than an hour later. The affidavit said he had multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Police later found the SUV not far from where the shooting occurred. The suspected driver, 27-year-old Tavon Jamere Harper, was arrested over the weekend and is facing fleeing and drug-related charges, court records show. Harper told investigators that he was accompanying Holt when Shaw tried to pull them over. After Holt leaped out, Harper said he kept driving, "clipping" Holt as he fled, the affidavit said.Now consider: When an officer pulls over a vehicle, everyone is supposed to stay in the car unless he tells them to get out. When Holt jumped out of the car and took off running, Shaw was armed and could have pointed his gun at Holt and ordered him to stop. Had Holt continued running at that point, Shaw could have fired. Had he done so, however, you know damn well what would have happened. The media would have screamed that Shaw "shot a black man in the back." They would have played up the racial angle. Even when it came out that Holt was indeed armed, Shaw would have been accused of firing with no indication that Holt intended to reach for his gun.
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