Video Shows Execution Of Auxiliary Cop
New York police have released surveillance video footage that shows an auxiliary police officer ducking behind a car before he was fatally shot by a former Marine Corps reservist and journalist, execution-style.
A relative said David Garvin, who killed two volunteer police officers and a bartender in a shooting rampage Wednesday night, had shown a spiraling paranoia in recent years, police said.
Garvin was shot and killed by police regulars after the deadly spree in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, near New York University and close to several famous bars and restaurants.
Garvin had no psychiatric history, but a family member said he had claimed people were "out to get him," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.
Garvin had been repeatedly kicked out of the restaurant where the shooting began, and may have been angry that a friend was fired from the establishment, police said.
Those possible motives were among several new details to emerge after Garvin, 42, turned the neighborhood's crowded streets into a shooting gallery, authorities said.
Garvin, wearing a fake beard, shot 35-year-old pizzeria bartender Alfredo Romero 15 times before going out on the street, where the unarmed volunteer officers followed him, according to police.Watch the surveillance video, in Karen Brown's report
One of the officers ordered Garvin to drop a bag filled with weapons. He did, but he then led them on a chase before turning on them. He shot one of the officers, 19-year-old Eugene Marshalik, in the back of the head, police said.
He then shot the other volunteer officer, Nicholas Todd Pekearo, while standing over him.
Garvin "was heavily armed and prepared to kill at will," Kelly said. "The fact that more lives were not lost is due in no small measure to auxiliary officers Pekearo and Marshalik, who tried valiantly to observe his actions, his changing locations as he fled the murder scene."
New York University student Marshalik was just two weeks shy of his 20th birthday. Pekearo, 28, was a writer about to have his first book published, reports CBS News' Karen Brown.
After shooting the two auxiliary officers, and with full-time officers in pursuit, Garvin ran inside a nearby shop, authorities said. He emerged shortly afterward and pointed his gun at the full-time officers, who shot him dead. Police fired 56 shots at Garvin.
Auxiliary police officers do not carry weapons but have uniforms that make them resemble regular police officers. They are not provided bulletproof vests but are allowed to wear them. Pekearo was wearing a bulletproof vest, but only one shot hit the vest; bullets punctured his skin six times.
Garvin had been carrying two semiautomatic firearms and the bag, which contained one of the weapons, the fake beard and 100 rounds of ammunition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
In a search of Garvin's Bronx apartment, authorities found a loaded .357-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver and about 100 rounds of ammunition, along with a wig, false mustache and knives, Kelly said.
Garvin had been a bartender at another Manhattan spot until last month, when he was fired, said Brian Barrow, manager of the Raccoon Lodge. "It just wasn't working out as a bartender," he said. "There was no animosity."
Barrow said Garvin did not exhibit any unusual behavior.
"He was a quiet man," Barrow said. "Very soft-spoken. You'd never guess that he would turn around and kill three people, but it seems that's usually the way it is."
Garvin was less-than-honorably discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve in 1988 after nearly three years of service, Kelly said.
Police found a resume on Garvin's computer listing jobs as a newspaper reporter, stringer and layout editor for The Wall Street Journal and the Mohave Valley Daily News of Bullhead City, Ariz.
He was an information graphics coordinator for the Journal from 2000 to 2005, said Dow Jones spokesman Robert Christie.
At the Mohave Valley Daily News, Garvin covered the city and public safety beats between June 1994 and November 1999, the newspaper said. Acquaintances and co-workers there described him as quiet and conscientious, with a dry sense of humor, according to the newspaper.
Garvin's former father-in-law, Jerry Mallett, told the Mohave Valley Daily News that he loaned Garvin $10,000 in 1998 for a down payment on a house. But Garvin didn't buy the house, the marriage didn't last and he left Arizona in 1999 to take the job at the Wall Street Journal.
Garvin's former wife and two children still live in the Bullhead City area, Mallett said.
Romero, the bartender who was the first victim, was from Puebla, Mexico, and had lived in New York for about 14 years, his brother said. He said Romero had worked at the pizza shop for about three years but had never had any trouble there.
Pekearo worked at Crawford Doyle Booksellers on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he was the store's "go-to guy for mysteries," business manager Ryan Olsen told The Times.
Marshalik had moved from Russia. He joined the auxiliary force after deciding he wanted to become a prosecutor, said his cousin, Tatyana Kochergina.
City officials said the two auxiliary officers, the first to die in the line of duty since 1993, would get full police honors at their funerals this weekend. Only five other auxiliary officers have died on the job in the city's history.