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A $40,000 reward posted for information leading to suspect's arrest
The officer had been with the police department for less than a year
Investigators have identified a suspect in the death of a western Pennsylvania police officer who was gunned down during a traffic stop.
Rahmael Sal Holt, 29, shot and killed officer Brian Shaw on Friday, police said.
“Consider Holt armed and dangerous,” the Pennsylvania State Police tweeted.
Brian Shaw had been a patrolman with New Kensington’s police department for less than a year when he was killed Friday night, according to police Chief James Klein.
The traffic stop resulted in a foot chase before Shaw, 25, was shot, Klein said.
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, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Officers from Westmoreland County and neighboring Allegheny County, as well as Pittsburgh police, combed the area overnight and processed the scene, CNN affiliate KDKA reported.
Trooper Stephen J. Limani, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Police, emphasized the importance of any information people can provide.
“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 Allegheny 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.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin tweeted his condolences to Shaw’s family and New Kensington police.
Shaw played for Slippery Rock University’s football team, according to the school athletic department’s Twitter page.
“Words can’t describe how I feel,” head football coach Shawn Lutz told KDKA. “He was part of our 2011 and 2013 championship teams.”
Shaw was the team’s kicker, Lutz said. The university is about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh.
“He said he wanted to be a police officer, he was a hard working guy, such a positive young man,” Lutz said of his former player. “Every time I think about Brian, I think of such a positive guy who would be successful at anything he did.”
CNN’s Kwegyirba Croffie contributed to this report