PENN HILLS, Pa. — Police in suburban Pittsburgh say a man who came in for questioning in the shooting death of an officer has been charged with killing him and another man.
Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt says 31-year-old Ronald Robinson of Pittsburgh shot 32-year-old Officer Michael Crawshaw on Sunday evening.
Moffatt says Robinson was leaving a house in Penn Hills where he had shot and killed 40-year-old Danyal Morton over a $500 drug debt.
Crawshaw was down the street in his patrol car waiting for backup to arrive when he was shot once in the head and as many as three times in the upper arm.
Moffatt says Robinson came in early today and was charged with two counts of homicide.
Crawshaw was the first to respond to a 911 call made about 8:20 p.m. Sunday in which gunshots and screaming were heard, Chief Howard Burton said. Police had responded to calls there before, one reason why Crawshaw was advised to wait, Burton said.
Morton made the first 911 call from the home in Penn Hills, a middle-class community about 10 miles east of Pittsburgh, Burton said. He lived there; police inferred from the call that there was an intruder or disturbance.
Moments later, a second 911 call was made by another resident to report that Morton had been shot.
Crawshaw was shot as he sat in the car, parked two doors down from where the 911 call was made.
The car was shot several times, including twice through the windshield, Burton said. The officer was pronounced dead at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital shortly before 9 p.m.
A wreath with a black ribbon was placed outside the house near where Crawshaw had parked, and a note on the door said the residents had no comment.
No crime scene tape or other indication of the crime was visible today outside the two-story brick home where the 911 call was made, and no one answered the door. Schoolchildren walked to bus stops in the neighborhood.
Neighbors reported hearing 10 gunshots Sunday night.
Robert Cephas, 57, who lives next door, said that he wasn’t home at the time, but that his wife and grandchildren were.
“They were hitting the floor, my grandkids,” he said.
Cephas said he has lived in the neighborhood for eight years, but didn’t really know the woman who lived in the home where the man was found dead. He said he believed the woman’s daughter had recently moved in.
Crawshaw was a three-year veteran and had worked at the University of Pittsburgh police department, Burton said.
The slain officer is the fourth to be killed on duty in Allegheny County this year. Pittsburgh Officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo were shot in a gun battle while responding to a call at a home in April.
The last time a Penn Hills officer was killed in the line of duty was in 1972, when Sgt. William Schrott and Officer Bartley Connolly Jr. were shot while trying to catch an armed robber at a shopping center.
“It is a dangerous job. People take it for granted. Fortunately, (a police shooting) does not happen that often, but it can happen,” Burton said.
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