By Lexi Belculfine
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
GREENSBURG, Pa. — New charges allege that a New Florence man hit and threatened his girlfriend before stealing a truck to flee from authorities the day police said he fatally shot a police officer in Westmoreland County.
Ray A. Shetler Jr.'s girlfriend called 911 around 9:15 p.m. Nov. 28 after Mr. Shetler threatened to kill her and himself, grabbed her arm and hit her with his hat, causing her nose to bleed, according to a criminal complaint filed today.
Mr. Shetler, 31, who is already in the Westmoreland County Prison on a homicide charge, faces a count each of terroristic threats, simple assault and harassment in the domestic dispute that brought St. Clair Officer Lloyd E. Reed Jr. to their Ligonier Street home.
Though police said they don’t know who fired first, Officer Reed fired six shots at Mr. Shetler, who returned three rounds from a .270-caliber rifle he had carried out of the house with him.
Officer Reed, 54, of Hollsopple, wore a bulletproof vest but did not survive a gunshot wound to the chest, the Cambria County Coroner’s Office said.
Mr. Shetler’s girlfriend told state police she told Mr. Shetler she called police, according to the affidavit. He told investigators he didn’t know the man approaching him with a gun drawn was a police officer, according to the criminal complaint in the homicide case.
After the men exchanged quick gunfire, Mr. Shetler, who was shot in front of his right shoulder, led police on a six-hour manhunt.
The second criminal complaint filed today said Mr. Shetler told police he stole a Ford F-150 pickup truck that was along the Conemaugh Generating Station’s fence line. He drove the truck to train tracks, where he abandoned it after he thought it ran out of gas, state police said.
Mr. Shetler told police he left the truck and walked back toward the station along Power Plant Road, where state police took him into custody just after 3 a.m. Nov. 29.
He also is charged with theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property, court records show.
State police and the Game Commission located the .270-caliber rifle about two days after the shooting, hidden under leaves in thick brush off a path in the woods that Mr. Shetler traveled.
It was about a mile from where Mr. Shetler was taken into custody and about three-quarters of a mile east of the Conemaugh River, which he told police he swam across.
Attorney Marc David Daffner, who is representing Mr. Shetler in the homicide case, did not return a call for comment this afternoon.
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