A 27-year-old Arkansas police officer who was “ambushed and executed” earlier this month while sitting in his patrol vehicle was shot 10 times in the head.
Surveillance video was released Friday in connection with the slaying of Fayetteville Officer Stephen Carr, who investigators say was gunned down outside police headquarters by London Phillips on Dec. 7. The suspect was later killed by police.
“We have hesitated to release the attached video of what transpired that night due to the heinous and shocking nature of this crime, but in an effort to keep the public informed of exactly what happened that night, we are releasing video of the incident along with the results of the Arkansas State Medical Examiner’s preliminary findings,” the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Friday.
The sheriff’s office has been looking into the shooting at the request of Fayetteville Police Chief Mike Reynolds. The video was first shared with Officer Carr’s family.
The medical examiner said any of the 10 shots “would have been fatal,” according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities say Phillips was “looking for an officer to kill.”
“All I know is that this was a cowardly act,” Reynolds previously told reporters.
The gunman fired 16 rounds and had reloaded his 9-mm Taurus pistol with another full magazine containing 17 rounds, according to investigators. One of the surveillance videos released Friday shows Phillips approaching the squad car and repeatedly firing at the vehicle.
Phillips, 35, was “interested in anti-law enforcement groups,” according to police searches of his social media accounts.
Hundreds of people attended Officer Carr’s funeral on Thursday in Fayetteville.
“He was someone you wanted to be around,” relative Andrew Skiles said, according to 5 News Online. “He was just always smiling. Always happy. Someone enjoyable that you knew always something good was happening around him.”
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