Posted on 04/01/2022 11:47:06 AM PDT by lightman
The 34-year-old man involved in a Thursday shooting that left both himself and a Lebanon police officer dead had mental health issues and had strangled a former girlfriend multiple times, court documents said.
Travis Shaud was unemployed and on disability because of his mental illness last year when his ex-girlfriend and mother of his 1-year-old child filed a protection of abuse order against him, Lebanon County documents said.
Shaud’s criminal record before the fatal shootout Thursday wasn’t extensive, but two assault charges, accounts from his neighbors and his own social media posts paint a troubled portrait of him.
Police said he broke into his stepdad’s Forest Street home Thursday and threatened his stepdad with a handgun. It’s unclear why. Officers then responded to the scene and broke down the back door.
Neighbors heard about 8–10 gunshots erupt inside the home after officers. The gunfire fatally wounded Shaud and Lt. William Lebo, who was one month away from retirement. Bullets critically injured two other officers who were in stable condition Friday.
The mother of Shaud’s 1-year-old daughter was all too familiar with his violent outbursts, court documents said.
In a petition for relief filed July 5, 2021, the woman said she had been staying with Shaud at his home in the 300 block of New Street in Lebanon — with their daughter and two of her children from another relationship — because she had nowhere else to go. Shaud was on probation for strangling her twice in December 2018 and June 2019.
In the first attack, police found the girlfriend hiding from Shaud on the roof, trembling. She had marks on her arms and said he had pushed her down and grabbed her. The next year, his former girlfriend said he pinched her nose and closed her mouth to prevent her from breathing. He also used two hands around her neck to choke her and dig his nails into her skin, court records said.
“Everyday at the house with him made me mentally exhausted,” she said in the petition filed last year. “Travis would block the door so I couldn’t leave the house.”
Travis Shaud, 34, was accused of strangling the mother of his child twice in two years, Lebanon County court documents said.
Shaud’s ex said he would not let her leave the house alone or with any of her children by the summer of 2021.
He also physically abused the couple’s 1-year-old daughter and caused a brain bleed, Shaud’s former girlfriend said in the court documents. Children and Youth Services eventually ordered Shaud to stay away from his child unless he was under supervision, the documents said.
A neighbor of Shaud’s, who PennLive isn’t identifying out of safety concerns, said she heard Shaud abusing a woman about three years ago. One night, the neighbor and her family woke up to the sound of a woman screaming for help from Shaud’s home. It’s unclear if charges were filed in that incident.
That neighbor said Shaud often blared loud music and didn’t care that it bothered people and kept them awake. Property records show Shaud’s mother and stepfather gifted him the house on New Street that they had purchased. He had lived there for three or four years.
Neighbors said Shaud used to live at the Forest Street home with his brother, mother and stepfather. Shaud’s mother died last summer at age 56. They believed Shaud had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“Attempts by family to intervene were met by resistance,” the Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office said in regard to Shaud’s mental illness.
In 2012, Shaud posted on Facebook that “he older i grow the more i start to think violence is the answer ..............a 12 guage sawed off and 1 shell of buckshot...........thats all i need to make things right in my eyes.........idc if u live or die just so every time u look in the mirror u remember who made your face look even worse.”
One Forest Street neighbor said she will never forget watching officers officers respond to the call for help.
“They were amazing, the way a guy covered the front door, the way a group went around the back,” said Pat, who didn’t want her last name published. “I heard the back door getting banged in by police, then eight to 10 gunshots.”
She saw injured officers walk outside, and the third officer brought out on a stretcher a while later, not moving.
Neighbors saw a man on the front porch around 2:30 p.m., about an hour before police were called. She didn’t think anything of it at the time. He was holding two packages, then went inside.
Shaud’s stepdad came home about an hour later, Pat said. Then all hell broke loose with gunshots and officers saying “three down” over the radio.
“I will never forget the sounds of the shots and them carrying the guys out,” she said.
May Lt. Lebo's Memory be Eternal.
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Why can’t these scumbags just suck cyanide? Instead they have to involve as many other people in their elaborate suicide schemes.
We had a death by cop last week. He said it. It’s a necessary evil, but ya gotta do what you gotts do.
Neck bearded loser..
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