Two former Ocean City police officers were killed in separate shootings over the weekend, one in Virginia and another in Pennsylvania, the Ocean City Police Department said Sunday.
Cameron Girvin, a 25-year-old Virginia Beach police officer, was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Friday in Virginia. Andrew Duarte, a 30-year-old officer with the West York Borough Police Department, was killed Saturday while responding to an active shooter incident at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York, Pennsylvania.
“Losing one of our own, no matter where they served, is a profound reminder of the risks we take and the bond we share,” Michael Colbert, Ocean City’s interim police chief, said in a news release Sunday.
Girvin, who began his police career in 2018 in Ocean City, and another officer, Christopher Reese, attempted to stop a vehicle with an expired plate late Friday night, but the male driver got into a “tussle” with police during which he pulled out a pistol and shot both officers, according to Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate.
“Those officers fell to the ground. While on the ground, defenseless, he shot them each a second time,” Neudigate said at a news conference Saturday. Reese, 30, was pronounced dead at the hospital, while Girvin died several hours later.
The alleged suspect, 42-year-old John McCoy III, of Virginia Beach, was found dead nearby with a gunshot wound to the head that Neudigate said police believed was self-inflicted, based on a preliminary investigation. “At no time did any of our officers fire shots,” he said.
Girvin was a public safety aide in Ocean City and was assigned to the boardwalk at night, according to a news release from Ocean City Police. He joined the Virginia Beach Police Department in 2020.
Duarte was a seasonal police officer in Ocean City in 2016 and served as a police officer for five years in Denver before joining the West York Borough Police Department in 2022.
He was killed Saturday in a shootout with a man who had entered UPMC’s intensive care unit and taken staff members hostage before he was killed by police.
“We all have broken hearts and are grieving at his loss,” West York Borough Manager Shawn Mauck told The Associated Press.
