PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — A man charged in the deadly shooting of a Temple University police officer with Lehigh Valley ties was convicted of murder Wednesday.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported a jury took about 20 minutes to convict Miles Pfeffer in the shooting death of Officer Christopher Fitzgerald after a running chase near the Temple campus in February 2023.
The verdict means Pfeffer, who was 18 when the crime occurred, will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Fitzgerald, a former Lehigh County corrections officer before joining the Temple University police force, is the son of former Allentown Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald. He was 31 when he died on Feb. 18, 2023.
Pfeffer, of Buckingham Township in Bucks County, was convicted of first-degree murder, murder of a law enforcement officer and weapons offenses.
The Inquirer reported the jury also found him guilty of carjacking a Temple student moments after the shooting.
Authorities said Christopher Fitzgerald spotted three people dressed in black and wearing masks in an area where there had been a series of robberies and carjackings.
He chased the trio, and after two of them hid he continued to pursue the third, police said.
Authorities allege that he caught up with Pfeffer on Montgomery Avenue and ordered him to the ground, and the two then struggled before Pfeffer pulled a handgun and fired six times.
The trial lasted three days.
Fitzgerald was the first Temple University officer killed in the line of duty. A father of five children, he joined the school’s police force in October 2021.