PENN HILLS, Pa. -- The man accused of killing a man over a $500 drug debt and then shooting and killing a Penn Hills police officer confessed to the crime, Allegheny County investigators said.
Officer Michael Crawshaw, 32, was shot with a high-powered rifle as he waited for backup to arrive at 201 Johnston Road at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, county police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said.
According to the criminal complaint, Crawshaw saw the suspect, Ronald Robinson, leaving the scene of the first killing and talked to Robinson from his police car.
"The police officer in the vehicle told Robinson to stop," the complaint says. "Robinson stated that he responded by shooting at the police car, and the police officer inside, with the assault rifle. Robinson told investigators that he had shot and killed both Danyal Morton and Officer Crawshaw."
Two police officers responded to the scene after Crawshaw on the night of the shooting. Channel 4 Action News' Shannon Perrine reported that the officers talked to a man in the house who lived with Morton.
According to the criminal complaint, the witness, Lamar Jay, told police that Robinson came to the door and knocked. He asked where Morton was, then went inside and shot him.
Police officers discovered Morton's body upstairs. It wasn't until afterward that they went outside and realized their fellow officer had been shot in his patrol car.
"He didn't have a chance. He was ambushed," said witness Nancy Salera. "It was rapid gunfire. Semi-automatic machine gun. And I heard a lot of screaming, a lot of yelling."
At a news conference on Monday morning, county police said the incident appears to have started with a dispute between Robinson, 32, of Homewood, and Morton, 40, of Penn Hills, who owed some money that Robinson had come to collect.
"The shooter does shoot Mr. Morton inside the home, and we believe he exits, and when he's exiting, he sees the officer there, so he just takes it upon himself to open up fire on the officer as he sat defenseless in his car," Moffatt said.
Video - 
Watch Marcie Cipriani's Report From County Police HQSlideshow - Photos From The Crime Scene
Share Your Condolences: Click here to share your thoughts on the loss of the fallen officer.Family and friends of Officer Michael Crawshaw will be welcomed on Wednesday and Thursday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Schellhaas Funeral Home (388 Center Avenue, West View.)
Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton said Crawshaw had responded to a 911 call and followed protocol by parking a few doors away from the house and calling for backup, but while he was on the radio, the shooter walked up and fired into the left side of Crawshaw's car. Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams said Crawshaw was shot three or four times, with a fatal wound to the head.
"It appears like he hit the left front, then continued hitting the left side, then the windshield of the car. It's all on the left side -- the driver's side," said Moffatt, who added that Crawshaw's weapon was out of its holster, so he may have tried to get a shot off.
Robinson was arrested at his Wheeler Street home without incident on Monday morning and was charged with two counts of criminal homicide and burglary, police said. A number of weapons were recovered from a home on Robinson's street, and police said they hope to identify one of those as the gun that was used to kill Morton or Crawshaw.
Moffatt said Robinson was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle at the time of his arrest. Team 4 later learned that the suspect was on parole with curfew restrictions after serving the minimum sentence on a gun charge.
More - Team 4: Penn Hills Suspect Was On Parole With Ankle Bracelet Channel 4 Action News reported that Morton was convicted last year of fleeing or attempting to elude, resisting arrest, recklessly endangering and marijuana possession. His mother said he told her that he was working at a shop in Wilkinsburg and she does not know why he was at the house on Sunday. His brother is a Pittsburgh police officer.
Crawshaw went to Shaler Area High School, where he played football, and worked for the University of Pittsburgh Police Department before moving to Penn Hills. He was not married and did not have children.
"He had a smile that just lit up the room that he was in," said Mindy Thiel, a classmate from Crawshaw's Shaler days. "That's what I'll remember about him most -- just the smile that he gave. He was so approachable with his group of friends. That was Mike."
Penn Hills Officer With 'Big Heart' Remembered He is the third Penn Hills police officer killed in the line of duty. The other two were killed in 1972.
"Thirty-seven years ago, there had never been anybody killed in the line of duty. There had been people who died but not killed," said District Judge Leonard J. HRomyak, who serves Penn Hills and Verona and was on the Penn Hills police force 37 years ago.
HRomyak said he remembers when two of his fellow officers -- Sgt. William Schrott and Officer Bartley Connolly Jr. -- were gunned down while working a detail at the East Hills Mall.
HRomyak said a woman attempted to rob a store and Schrott tried talking her into dropping the gun. The woman shot and killed Schrott and also Connolly when he tried to follow suit.
"That was the tragedy heard around the world at that point. With this new one, it certainly regenerates all those feelings that you had from back then, and obviously, it did again with those officers that passed away in April," HRomyak said.
HRomyak said officers experience a gambit of emotions at a time like this.
"They're feeling angry, empty, certainly, sorrowful and so forth for the parents of Officer Crawshaw," HRomyak said.
Crawshaw is the fourth police officer to be killed on the job this year in Allegheny County.
Officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo, all of the Pittsburgh Police Bureau,
were shot dead on a domestic call in the city's Stanton Heights neighborhood on April 4. The suspect in that case, 23-year-old Richard Poplawski, is awaiting trial on three counts of homicide.
Penn Hills borders the city of Pittsburgh, and several officers from the Pittsburgh's Zone 5 station worked the crime scene with Penn Hills and Allegheny County police on Sunday night.
A neighbor on Johnston Road already had a blue light shining on his porch for Pittsburgh's three fallen police officers, but the light now has new meaning after he raced to Crawshaw's side to try to save him.
"It makes me sick," the man said, crying. "My best friend is a police officer and I worry on a daily basis, so it hits home for me. It hits home for a lot of people in a county now mourning the loss of our fourth murdered police officer this year."
The U.S. flag at the Penn Hills police station was at half-staff in Crawshaw's honor on Monday, and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onarato has ordered the same to be done at all county buildings.
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