Law enforcement agencies on Saturday searched for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a western Pennsylvania police officer, gunned down during a traffic stop.
Brian Shaw had been a patrolman with New Kensington’s police department for less than a year before he was killed Friday night, the city’s Police Chief James Klein said in a press conference.
Klein said the traffic stop resulted in a chase on foot before Shaw, 25, was shot.
“I’m asking anybody, anybody with any information as minute as they think it might be, please, please give us a call,” Klein said. “We need to find the person who did this.
New Kensington is about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Authorities have put up a $40,000 reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest, according to a Pennsylvania State Police spokesman, with money pooled from multiple agencies, including the US Marshals Service, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacoo, Firearms and Explosives.
Officers from Westmoreland County and neighboring Allegheny County, as well as Pittsburgh police,combed the New Kensington area overnight and processing the scene, CNN affiliate KDKA reported.
Trooper Stephen J. Limani, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Police, emphasized in a news conference Saturday the importance of any information people can provide.
“I think, if you look back in the history of many horrific incidents, a very small, minute tip could be the tipping point to lead us in a direction of who the person was that committed this crime,” Limani said.
Shaw graduated from the Allegheny County Police Training Academy in 2014, according to a post on the Alleghency County Police Department’s Facebook page.
“Officer Brian Shaw, you were taken from us too soon,” the department wrote. “You are in our thoughts and prayers.
