The suspect in the killing of an Orlando, Florida, police officer this month was captured on Tuesday, authorities said, ending an extensive manhunt.
Markeith Loyd, 41, was wanted in the fatal shooting of Master Sergeant Debra Clayton on Jan. 9. The shooting took place as police were trying to capture Loyd for the December murder of his pregnant former girlfriend.
“We’ve got him! Markeith Loyd in OPD custody,” the Orlando Police Department said on Twitter. Authorities had offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture.
Online video footage showed Loyd being hustled into police headquarters by sheriff’s deputies and police, some of them masked. “They beat me up,” he shouted to reporters outside the building.
Clayton, a decorated 17-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department, was shot while responding to a sighting of Loyd at a Walmart.
She exchanged fire with Loyd, who was wearing body armor at the time and continued to fire when Clayton was down, police have said. Clayton died at a hospital.
Loyd fled the shooting scene in a car and fired at a deputy who tried to the stop him, authorities said. The deputy was unharmed.
Police have said three people were arrested in Florida on charges of having helped Loyd avoid capture in recent weeks.
An Orange County sheriff’s deputy in the manhunt for Loyd was killed in a collision between his motorcycle and a van.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-police-idUSKBN15204H
Hard to believe he didnt take a few more down on the capture.. so maybe its all a fake news story … why would a “cop killer” be taken alive?
My guess is that they know he’s a shoe-in for the death penalty anyway, so they probably wanted him alive in order to cause him as much misery as possible until his execution.
He made a huge mistake by allowing himself to be taken alive, but it’s possible that he was taken by surprise at some point when he (foolishly) didn’t have a gun on him. Some greedy rat probably dropped a dime on him for the reward.
Not that I’m a fan of this guy, seeing as he had reportedly killed a pregnant woman. But sometimes bad people do good things, like wasting one pig and indirectly causing the death of another.
“They beat me up,” he shouted to reporters outside the building.”
You had a gun.
You had your chance.
Disappointing.