NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A veteran New Orleans police officer was shot and killed early Saturday while transporting a suspect to the city jail, authorities said. The suspect escaped and was being sought by law enforcement officers.
The New Orleans Police Department said Officer Daryle Holloway was shot while transporting the suspect, who managed to get his handcuffed hands from behind his back to the front, grab a firearm and shoot the officer. Thepolice vehicle then crashed into a utility pole and the suspect, Travis Boys, fled.
Emergency medical teams arrived at the scene and found Harrison in the front seat of the vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died a short time later.
A manhunt was underway for the 33-year-old Boys, according to Police Chief Michael Harrison.
“He will be caught and he will be brought to justice for the murder of Officer Holloway and for this assault on our entire community,” Harrison said in a statement issued by the police department.
Harrison said Boys came from the back seat of the vehicle into the front seat through a hole in the cage that separated front from back.
John Polk, who lives in rental property on Marigny Street around the corner from the shooting scene, said he was just awakening when he heard a noise but it wasn’t’ a gunshot.
“It was just the noise from a transformer blowing and knocking the power out,” Polk said.
Polk said he didn’t realize that a police officer had been shot until about 45 minutes later as he was leaving the house to take his wife to work.
Traffic near the scene is backed up for blocks.
Regional and state law enforcement agencies, along with the U.S. Marshals Service, were searching for Boys, who was arrested on an aggravated battery charge and outstanding warrant. The statement said Holloway was not the arresting officer.
Holloway, 45, had been a member of the New Orleans Police Department since 1992. He was the father of three children.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu decried the killing as “the lowest of the low.”
“Killing an officer in the line of duty is an attack on our community that will not stand,” Landrieu said in a statement. “The heart and soul of New Orleans is heavy today as our community mourns one of our city’s finest.”
I hope he’s caught and is given the death penalty.
Amazing you made the only comment on this story. There are way too many people on here who don’t care if a cop gets killed. In fact, many will blame the cop here too. I prefer to condemn the guilty party when a cop has an encounter with the public. In this case, it was the depraved scum who shot the cop.
It isn’t so much a question of caring - of course we care - so much as a matter of whether the situation is clear and whether there is anything that society can and should do about the situation. And it will always be the case that the police will come in for more criticism both because we feel more responsible for their actions than we do for the actions of criminals and because we guess that we will have better luck trying to reform the police than we would trying to reform the crooks.
I said “way too many people”, and I stand by that. And there are lots of people who do care as well, like yourself. I’ve seen your comments, and in no way do I put you in that first category. But I do for many. Let’s face it, even in situations where the cop was 100% in the right, many people on here still go after the cop. They just ignore facts. But there are also LOTS of people who do care for sure.
We should be doing BOTH of those things. I’m all for getting rid of bad cops. I have deep hatred for people like Patrick Lynch. But we also need to tell people to respect the law and police. Get to them before they become crooks.
Hello Everyone, One thing that I am puzzled about is the sentence/paragraph: “Harrison said Boys came from the back seat of the vehicle into the front seat through a hole in the cage that separated front from back.” What the hell is a hole doing in a cage? It shouldn’t have been there but if it was there then another vehicle should have been used.