On a December evening in 2009, 32-year-old Patrolman Michael James Crawshaw of the Penn Hills Police Department was ambushed and fatally shot while seated in his patrol car. Crawshaw had been the first responder to a call about a man with a gun on Johnston Road and parked a couple of houses away to await backup. While waiting he radioed that he heard gunfire from inside the residence; a homicide had just occurred there. The suspect, Ronald Robinson, had gone to the home to collect a $500 drug debt and had murdered Danyal Morton before exiting and shooting at Officer Crawshaw with an AK-47, striking him multiple times.

Robinson fled but was apprehended shortly afterward. He was tried in January 2013; the jury convicted him of first-degree murder for Danyal Morton’s death and second-degree murder for Patrolman Crawshaw’s death, and he received two consecutive life sentences without parole. Crawshaw had served two and a half years with the Penn Hills Police Department and had been a former officer with the University of Pittsburgh Police Department.

If anyone knew Officer Crawshaw, his patrol work, or was in the Johnston Road area that night, can you share what you remember?