Pennsylvania State Police are mourning the life of one of their own.<\/p>\n
Cpl. Timothy O’Connor was shot and killed in the line of duty in Chester County on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
O’Connor was a 15-year Pennsylvania State Police veteran.<\/p>\n
Flags have been lowered to half-staff across the commonwealth to honor his memory.<\/p>\n
“He was a great cop. A cop’s cop, and a public servant who dedicated his life to keeping his fellow Pennsylvanians safe,” said Gov. Josh Shapiro.<\/p>\n
Authorities say it happened around 8:30 p.m. Sunday near the intersection of Route 10 and Michael Road in West Caln Township.<\/p>\n
It’s a community neighbors say is usually quiet.<\/p>\n
“Soon as I hit the driveway, I heard gunshots, and normally around here you don’t think, you think, ‘oh somebody’s hunting’ or ‘it’s the Amish’ or ‘it’s a farmer’ or whatever, or something’s going on, but then I started hearing the whistles and the sirens and I was like what is— what is that?” says Stephanie King, of West Caln Township.<\/p>\n
O’Connor was called to the area for a report of someone driving erratically.<\/p>\n
As he approached the vehicle, the driver, Jesse Nathan Elks, immediately opened fire, striking O’Connor.<\/p>\n
Elks, 32, then got out of his car and fatally shot himself, authorities say.<\/p>\n
O’Connor was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
He leaves behind his wife, young daughter and parents.<\/p>\n
“Our entire commonwealth this morning is mourning his loss. We stand with the O’Connors… And the entire Pennsylvania State Police family, Tim was the best of us and may his memory be a blessing,” Shapiro said.<\/p>\n
The Chester County District Attorney’s Office and PSP Troop J Major Case Team are investigating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania State Police are mourning the life of one of their own. Cpl. Timothy O’Connor was shot and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[214,11649,28,30,29,7446],"class_list":{"0":"post-134049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-northern-chester-county","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news","13":"tag-southeastern-pa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}