A convicted felon allegedly “executed” two Virginia police officers at point-blank range as they were already lying on the ground wounded and defenseless following a weekend traffic stop, authorities said.
Virginia Beach Police Officers Cameron Girvin, 25, and Christopher Reese, 30, were both pronounced dead early Saturday after being shot multiple times in a “horrific” encounter that was caught on the officers’ body cameras and their squad car dashboard camera, according to Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate.
“I can tell you from the video that after he executed our officers, he calmly walked away,” Neudigate said of the suspect, identified as 42-year-old John McCoy III of Virginia Beach, who police said they found dead from an apparent suicide.
Neudigate said it was the first time in 16 years that the Virginia Beach Police Department has lost an officer in a line-of-duty shooting. He said every member of his department “is hurting.”
“We asked them to go out in this community and keep us safe from evil. And last night, evil found them,” Neudigate said during a news conference on Saturday.
Girvin and Reese were partnered up Friday night and were assigned to the midnight shift traffic car, Neudigate said. At about 11:27 p.m. on Friday, the officers attempted to stop a blue Hyundai Sonata after noticing it had expired license plate tags. The driver, according to Neudigate, failed to pull over.