A massive manhunt is underway for the gunman who shot and killed a Shreveport, La., police officer Wednesday, and Louisiana police say they will not rest until the “coward” is brought to justice.
Police Officer Thomas LaValley, 29, was shot multiple times Wednesday while responding to a call of a suspicious person in the Queensborough neighborhood about 9:15 p.m., police said.
Authorities say 27-year-old Grover Cannon is wanted in connection with the slaying.
“We will scour the earth and wherever he goes we will find him,” Shreveport Police Chief Willie Shaw told reporters Thursday during a solemn news conference.
“There is nowhere that he can go. There is nothing that he can do to stop us from bringing him to justice. We will not rest,” Shaw added. “He is nothing to me but a coward.”
The search for the cop killer was expanded Thursday to at least one additional state.
In Jackson, Miss., officers have searched at least two Greyhound buses that arrived from Louisiana in a manhunt for Grover D. Cannon, 27, accused of shooting a Shreveport police officer multiple times.
The Shreveport police chief said Officer LaValley “did not hesitate to confront a bad person.”
“In this day and time when it has become popular to denigrate law enforcement officers, here is a chance to say something good about a young officer who sacrificed his life to help others.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=birP59Xcj_4
LaValley is the 71st officer who has died in the line of duty this year — the 19th killed by gunfire, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
He is the second officer to be shot and killed since Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on July 30th exhorted followers to “rise up and kill those who kill us.”
That may or may not be a coincidence.
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