A suburban man was found guilty on Wednesday by a Philadelphia jury of killing a Temple University police officer who had been pursuing him as a suspect in a string of carjackings.
There had been no question that Miles Pfeffer had slain Officer Christopher Fitzgerald. The main focus of the murder trial was whether the gunshot death in February 2023 was deliberate.
Joel Fitzgerald, the former chief of police of Allentown from 2013 to 2015, was Fitzgerald’s father.
Jurors convicted him of robbery, firearms offenses, and murder of a law enforcement officer after less than 30 minutes of deliberation, according to the prosecution. Then he received a life sentence without the possibility of release, plus decades for robbery.
The case’s prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Bob Wainwright, described Fitzgerald as the type of police officer our city needs. Indeed, there is some relevance to the significance of a case involving the murder of a police officer. because the police are essential to the operation of our society.
Pfeffer’s attorneys said that he was a scared 18-year-old who panicked that evening before he was taken into custody hours later on his mother’s expansive 18th-century Bucks County farm home in posh Buckingham. Pfeffer is twenty years of age now.
In their opening arguments, prosecutors informed jurors that Fitzgerald pursued Pfeffer, his brother, and a friend who were all wearing black masks and were in an area where a string of carjackings and robberies had occurred. There were two teenagers who hid. There was a scuffle after Fitzgerald caught up to Pfeffer and told him to get down, according to the officials.
Then, according to the prosecution, Pfeffer produced a gun and shot Fitzgerald six times, sometimes at close range. Some of the chase and shooting were captured on security camera footage that was shown to jurors in court. During the trial, Pfeffer’s brother gave testimony against him.
Wainwright credited investigators for obtaining witness testimony and obtaining Pfeffer’s DNA from a carjacking vehicle, saying prosecutors thought they had a solid case.
Following the adjournment of the court, Wainwright told reporters, “Here we had six gunshots, all the vital parts of the human body, all at close range, and all captured on video in a way that just kind of showed the viciousness of it.”
Fitzgerald, 31, had four children and was married.
Pfeffer’s acts were not premeditated, according to opening statements made by Assistant Defender Susan Ricci.
However, Pfeffer’s purpose was demonstrated on camera as he stood over the officer and fired, according to Assistant District Attorney Lauren Crump.
Despite calls for the death penalty from Fitzgerald’s father, a former city officer who currently serves as the head of the Denver transit police, and the Temple University Police Association, which referred to Krasner’s decision as devastating, district attorney Larry Krasner opposes the death penalty and chose not to pursue it in this case.
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