A New Orleans police officer was shot dead during an argument over mask requirements at a high school basketball game.
Police said 35-year-old John Shallerhorn was trying to enter George Washington Carver High School’s high school for a playoff game against Warren Easton High around 6:15 p.m. Friday when he was stopped by a staff member checking the temperatures and a mask mandate enforced NOLA.com.
Shallerhorn fought the school clerk before Martinus Mitchum, a Tulane University police officer and assistant police officer in the Second City Court who worked as a security officer for the school, tried to end the argument.
The 38-year-old Mitchum accompanied Shallerhorn from campus when the man allegedly pulled out a gun and shot the police officer twice, the police said.
Shallerhorn then put his gun on the ground, police said, and the Orleans Township Sheriff’s deputies who were at school arrested him.
Mitchum was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Before the shooting, Shallerhorn stole a locket chain at gunpoint from a 39-year-old man who was sitting in a parked car.
Shallerhorn could potentially face the death penalty for the murder of a first degree police officer and armed robbery.
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