On the evening of November 28, 2015, Lloyd Reed (born October 29, 1961), a police officer for St. Clair Township, Pennsylvania, United States, responded to a domestic disturbance report at a house in the borough of New Florence. He was shot and killed during an exchange of fire with Ray Shetler Jr., who had been violently and drunkenly arguing with his girlfriend. Shetler was charged with murder; he said Reed had fired first and not clearly identified himself as a police officer. In 2018, a Westmoreland County jury acquitted him of that charge and found him guilty of two lesser charges in the case related to his theft of a pickup truck during his escape along with charges arising from the original domestic violence incident. Most of the time he was sentenced to was credited as time served while awaiting trial.
In 2021, Shetler was arrested on charges of assaulting another police officer during an arrest for violating probation on the earlier charges. He claims that one of the arresting officers deliberately blinded him in one eye as retaliation for Reed's death. In 2023 he was convicted of charges arising from that incident.
Background After graduating from Conemaugh Township High School and serving in the Army, Lloyd Reed, a native of Hollsopple, had worked as a police officer in the rural areas southeast of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Following stints with the Seward and Hooversville departments, the majority of his career was with the Seven Springs department, until it was disbanded in 2010. He met his wife when he pulled her over for speeding. By late 2015 he was working part-time for the St. Clair Township police, holding the rank of sergeant.
In the early 2000s, Ray Shetler Jr. had been a standout athlete on the baseball and football teams at Laurel Valley High School, near the borough of New Florence, within St. Clair Township. Since high school he had remained in the area, where he had compiled a criminal record. A 2005 guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to commit simple assault drew two years of probation, and in 2013 he was convicted of another assault charge. The one year of probation he was sentenced to for that was extended another year in late 2014 after he violated it; it was still in effect in November 2015.
In late 2014, Shetler, by then 31, moved into a house on Ligonier Avenue in New Florence with his girlfriend, Kristin Luther. She later testified that the couple planned to marry. In October 2015 Shetler received another two years of probation after pleading guilty to reckless endangerment. Shetler had met Reed; he told investigators that on November 27, 2015, the two had a brief conversation about some firewood Reed was considering buying from him.
Killing
At 9 p.m. on November 28, 2015, Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) received a 9-1-1 call from Luther. The couple had argued when she woke him up after he fell asleep an hour earlier in bed still holding a beer. Still drunk, he became violent and began breaking things around the house. "All I wanted was for them to take Ray out of the house so he wouldn't break anything because he was mad", she said later. At some point during this rampage, a wood-burning stove had malfunctioned, filling the house with smoke. Luther had locked herself in the bathroom after he had drunkenly struck her with the brim of a baseball cap and left her with a bloody nose. Outside, he was kicking the door, threatening to kill her and himself with a .271-caliber hunting rifle he had been preparing for the upcoming opening day of deer season. She advised the dispatcher that Shetler had the gun. When she told him the police were coming, he said "Fuck the police". The dispatcher kept her on the line and advised a state trooper responding to it of the evolving details.
State trooper Michael Dzvonik requested assistance at the scene due to the escalating situation, since reports of a possible fire at the house due to the smoke from the stove had reached dispatch. Reed responded since New Florence had no officers of its own on duty at the time and it would take Dzvonik some time to reach the house as he was away when the call came in. Reed was joined at the scene around 9:15 by Justin Birkert, a Seward officer who had also heard the report. The two arrived at the same time. Reed approached the house and shouted at Shetler to drop the gun. When Shetler refused, Reed fired his .40-caliber service weapon, prompting Shetler to return fire.
One of the three bullets in Shetler's rifle struck Reed in his left side where a bulletproof vest he was wearing did not provide sufficient coverage against a round fired from a rifle at such close range. He had fired six shots at Shetler, who began to flee. Birkert filed a single shot at Shetler as he ran off into the night. Reed, on the ground, took out his radio and called for help before he lost consciousness. He was taken to a local hospital where he died of his injuries around 10 p.m.
Shetler, wounded in the shoulder, swam across the Conemaugh River after running northeast. Police launched a massive manhunt of the area. On the north side of the river, he broke into a pickup truck and drove it a short distance, abandoning it near some railroad track after it stopped running. A tip from a resident of the area led to him being taken into custody without further incident near the Conemaugh Generating Station at 3 a.m. November 29. He told police he had lost the rifle while crossing the river, and was taken to a hospital for treatment of his gunshot wound. Upon learning that he had shot and killed a police officer, he said that if he had known he would have taken his own life, and expressed regret that more officers had not shown up and that there were not more bullets in his gun.
On December 1, police found Shetler's rifle. It was not in the river or on its banks, but rather hidden inside a hooded sweatshirt with bloodstains and three holes under a pile of leaves near the road towards the power station that Shetler had walked to after crossing the river.,
Aftermath
Shetler was charged with criminal homicide the day after the shooting. Under Pennsylvania law, this is an umbrella charge that can support more specific offenses, from murder to manslaughter, later on. A week after Reed's death, Shetler was charged with additional offenses arising from his actions that night: theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property for the truck, and simple assault, terroristic threats and harassment in the domestic violence incident that had led his girlfriend to call the police.
Governor Tom Wolf ordered all state buildings to fly their flags at half-staff in Reed's memory. The St. Clair police received many accounts of Reed's acts of compassion and helpfulness, such as staying with a family at their disabled vehicle until it could be towed; fellow officers recalled how much they had learned from him about how to treat people. Officers came from all over Pennsylvania and other states to Reed's funeral December 3, held at Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown.
Shetler was held without bail. Two weeks after the killing, a preliminary hearing was held on the charges against him. He did not testify, but made some statements about Reed's death ancillary to the proceedings. "Everyone in Ligonier knows I wouldn't do a thing like this," he said as he entered the courtroom. During the state's presentation of its evidence against him, when it described the circumstances of the shooting, Shetler audibly whispered to his attorney, Marc Daffner, that Reed's flashlight was pointed directly at his face. The state trooper who had interviewed him twice about what had happened testified that Shetler changed his story. During the first interview he had said he did not know Reed was a police officer, but the second time he admitted hearing Reed's demand that he drop the gun. At that time Shetler said he was still heavily intoxicated from the alcohol and drugs he had consumed, so what Reed said might not have fully registered. Upon learning that he had shot and killed a police officer, Shetler told the trooper that if he had known that at the time he would have killed himself.
Judge Denise Thiel denied Daffner's request to drop the "garbage" lesser charges, and ordered Shetler held for trial. In March 2016 Westmoreland County district attorney John Peck filed notice that in the event of a conviction the state would seek the death penalty. Shetler was held without bail since he was facing first-degree murder, a capital charge. In 2017 Meaghan Bilik-DeFazio, the judge presiding over the trial in Common Pleas Court, denied Daffner's motion to dismiss the charges for insufficient evidence.
Trial
When Shetler went on trial in February 2018 at the county courthouse in Greensburg, Peck drew a contrast in his opening argument between the lifetime of public service and dedication Reed brought to that night, whereas Shetler "woke up irritated, full of venom and content with belligerence." Daffner agreed with Peck's characterization of the case as a tragedy, but for different reasons. He told the jury that he understood if they believed his client was guilty, because he had at first too. He had hoped Shetler would not call him, and when he did, initially refused several requests to retain him. "This is not a case of murder, but self-defense," Daffner said.
The prosecution called 22 witnesses and introduced 190 exhibits into evidence, many of them related to proving that Reed had died as a result of Shetler firing at him. The pathologist who had performed the autopsy on Reed testified that the bullet had pierced the left ventricle of his heart. The jury was taken, along with Shetler, to see both the scene of the shooting and the area across the river where Shetler was captured, which the prosecution said was necessary to support its argument that his lengthy flight on foot and across the river from where he shot Reed indicated he was aware of what he had done.
Prosecution witnesses included the head of security at the generating station, who testified that when he first saw Shetler trying to break into an excavator, Shetler charged at him while swearing loudly. When state troopers arrived, Shetler tried to convince them his gunshot wound had been inflicted by the witness. One trooper, Michael Colo, described Shetler as "arrogant and belligerent", saying that he could not surrender due to his injury and challenging Colo to shoot him as "I've already been shot by one coward tonight" and identifying himself as "Tom fucking Sawyer" when he finally gave himself up.
The state police investigator who interviewed Shetler recalled how he had blamed the entire incident on Luther having awakened him. Two of the paramedics who treated Shetler after the arrest also took the stand. One, a man, said that Shetler's belligerence had continued, that he expressed a wish for more bullets in his gun and more police to respond. Shetler told him that the incident had occurred when he was out in his yard chopping firewood and that he had not realized the apparent trespasser was a police officer. By contrast, a female paramedic testified that Shetler was polite and that he had asked her repeatedly if it was true that he had killed a police officer.