Posted on 07/25/2004 7:37:55 PM PDT by nuconvert
Suspect in Slaying of Officer Kills Himself in Jacksonville
The Associated Press
STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) - A man suspected of killing a city police officer as he sat in his patrol car committed suicide early Sunday with the officer's gun as a law enforcement team led by U.S. Marshals closed in on him in Florida, authorities said. Timothy W. Berner, 33, was found in Jacksonville, Fla., after authorities received a tip late Saturday by a viewer of the television program "America's Most Wanted" that he was in the area, police said.
Berner was accused of stalking police officers the night of June 4. Police said Berner shot Officer Mark Sawyers, 30, while he wrote an accident report in a Sterling Heights parking lot, took the officer's .40-caliber Glock handgun and fled in a 1994 red Camaro.
"(Berner) took his life using Mark's weapon, so in a sense he was delivered into our hands because Mark was probably there, hopefully helping to pull that trigger," Sterling Heights Police Chief Barnett Jones told reporters. "A coward's way for Mr. Berner, but it allows us to have some closure."
Federal officials said Berner wanted a smaller weapon than the shotgun they say he used to kill Sawyers to have a more easily concealable weapon to use in robberies. The FBI had linked Berner to several armed robberies this year in Michigan that took place before Sawyers was killed.
The circumstances that brought Berner to the Jacksonville home were under investigation Sunday.
A team of law enforcement officials participated in the raid at the two-story home on Jacksonville's south side, and police said two Sterling Heights detectives were in Florida assisting with the investigation.
Police said the team entered the home about 5 a.m. and police heard a single gunshot from a second-floor bedroom. When authorities entered the room, police said Berner was found dead with a single gunshot wound to the head.
The bullet that killed Berner also went through a wall of the home, striking a deputy marshal in the arm, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release, but the wound wasn't considered serious.
Berner was the subject of an extensive manhunt. A state warrant for first-degree murder had been issued for Berner, whose last known address was in Macomb County's Clinton Township. And a federal warrant also had been issued.
Berner was added to the U.S. Marshals "15 Most Wanted" fugitive list July 1. The search for Berner had been featured on "America's Most Wanted" several times since Sawyers' slaying, prompting scores of tips.
Berner died as he lived - a sniveling little coward. Good riddance.
Saving taxpayers the cost of trial and imprisonment was his only virtue.
The official story is good enough for me. Personally, I'd have rathered if the shot went off after the cops already went into his room and arrested him.
>>The bullet that killed Berner also went through a wall of the home, striking a deputy marshal in the arm<<
The deputy marshal needs to ask for an AIDS test on Berner's body, ASAP.
too bad he didnt do this before he killed his first victim
The 'Rats lost another voter.
I thought guns were too easy to get in this country... Something doesn't smell right here.
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