This month we share our first story, and it is about Officer Brian Shaw and how, with only a tiny piece of information, justice was quickly served.<\/p>\n
The Story:<\/strong><\/p>\n At the age of 25, Patrolman Shaw was a 2014 graduate of the Allegheny County Police Training Academy and served with the New Kensington Police Department. Patrolman Shaw loved children and enjoyed connecting with them. At one point, a social media posting went viral when he presented a pair of play handcuffs to a small child who wanted to dress up for Halloween as a police officer. Brian had a servant\u2019s heart and was ideally suited for his job.<\/p>\n On Friday evening at approximately 8:00 p.m. November 17, 2017, New Kensington, PA patrolman Brian Shaw made a traffic stop. Before he could stop the SUV, a man jumped out of the car before it was stopped. The vehicle\u2019s passenger fled on foot, then opened fire on Patrolman Shaw as he pursued him. Although he was wearing his vest, Patrolman Shaw was shot in the chest during the foot pursuit. During this pursuit, the suspect dropped his cell phone.<\/p>\n At 8:50 p.m., Brian Shaw is transported to the hospital, where he died.<\/p>\n The cell phone was recovered very soon after that by investigating officers. The device was a locked iPhone and was thought to be a dead-end by the local police and federal agencies involved in the investigation. But, thanks to one of our Whooster customers, a Digital Forensics expert, that would not be true.<\/p>\n Over the objections of all involved agencies, because it was thought that no information could be extracted from the phone, our Digital Forensics expert removed the SIM card from the device. He placed the SIM card into a SIM card reader, and the phone retrieved the phone number from it. He then ran that phone number through Whooster\u2019s texting access on his phone which revealed the phone\u2019s owner within seconds. Whooster was then able to identify the suspect, Rahmael Holt, as the man suspected of shooting and killing Shaw. This single piece of evidence and the call detailed records obtained from the carrier information also provided through Whooster was pivotal in the conviction and sentencing to death of Ramael Holt for his actions.<\/p>\n On November 21th, 2019, Rahmael Holt was convicted of Patrolman Shaw\u2019s murder. He was sentenced to death plus an additional 10.5 to 27 years for weapons charges in February 2020, bringing swift justice and peace to Officer Shaw\u2019s family.<\/p>\n