Slain Virginia Beach Police Officers Identified: 'There's No Such Thing as Routine Traffic Stop'

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — Officers Cameron Girvin and Christopher Reese were working the midnight traffic patrol shift late Friday night when they noticed a car with an expired inspection sticker and attempted to pull it over.

After the driver of the blue Hyundai Sonata failed to stop, the officers continued to follow the vehicle into a townhouse complex near the intersection of Lynnhaven Parkway and Wendfield Drive, in the Green Run area, according to Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate.

Both officers approached the car after it stopped and asked the driver to get out, Neudigate said. The man, however, refused. He began to argue with them, and a “tussle” broke out, the chief said. It ended moments later when the man pulled a pistol from his pocket and shot both officers.

“The officers fell to the ground,” Neudigate said. “While on the ground, defenseless, he shot them each a second time.”

The shooting was captured by both officers’ body-worn cameras, as well as a dashboard-mounted camera in their police cruiser, the chief said.

In the footage, the man, later identified as 42-year-old John Lee McCoy III, is seen calmly walking away, Neudigate said. His body was found in a nearby shed with a gunshot wound to the head. The chief said the wound is believed to have been self-inflicted. He also said there was a passenger in McCoy’s car, but that person will not be charged.

Reese, 30, was taken to Sentara Princess Anne Hospital, where he died a short time later surrounded by family, friends, and fellow officers, Neudigate said. Reese became a Virginia Beach officer in 2022, after having served three years as a deputy sheriff for the city.

Girvin, 25, was transported to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, where he died around 4:30 a.m., also surrounded by loved ones and colleagues. Girvin was sworn in as a Virginia Beach officer in 2020.

“We’re hurting,” Neudigate said during a news conference Saturday that was attended by several local and state leaders. “The department is hurting. The city is hurting. And if you know Virginia Beach, we’re a big city, but we’re really just a small community, and I can tell you this community is hurting.”

Neudigate said McCoy’s motive wasn’t known. He had a felony conviction from 2009, and if he’d been caught with a gun, he would have faced arrest and possibly another conviction for being a felon with a gun, the chief said.

“I think we all want to know (the motive) but I think only one person knows that and that individual is deceased,” Neudigate said.

Traffic stops are among the most dangerous situations a police officer can encounter, said Brian Luciano, a retired Virginia Beach officer and executive director of the Virginia Beach Police Benevolent Association.

“There’s a phrase in law enforcement that you have to shake out of your head and that’s the idea of a routine traffic stop,” Luciano said. “There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop.”

Nearby residents said they witnessed and heard the event unfold near the intersection of Sylvan Lane and Harbinger Road.

Randy Nash said he was outside when he saw officers telling a man in a car to stop resisting as they wrestled with him. Nash then heard gunshots and a scream. He saw officers on the ground before witnessing the man flee through a nearby alley.

A few doors over, Tyler Lane said officers filled area with weapons drawn, instructing residents to stay away from the windows. Lane said he turned over photos he captured after the shooting in hopes of helping the investigation.

“This is an awful situation and it shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

On Saturday afternoon, officers began putting together a memorial in front of the 4th Precinct, where Girvin and Reese were assigned. It included two patrol vehicles, two blue candles wrapped in black ribbons, and several bouquets of flowers and teddy bears. A nearby American flag flew at half-staff.

Among the visitors who stopped by to pay their respects were Laura Poyner and Charlotte Gomez.

“It’s just senseless,” said Poyner, a city employee who works alongside many officers. “Over an expired license plate? …Your heart hurts for their families.”

Gomez lives within walking distance of where the shooting occurred. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

Since 1898, 15 Virginia Beach officers have been killed in the line of duty, according to the Virginia Beach Police Foundation. This weekend’s deaths brought the number to 17.

The last time a city police officer was killed in the line of duty was August 2008. That incident also occurred in the Green Run area.

Detective Michael Smith Phillips, 37, was sitting in a pickup, preparing to make an undercover buy from a suspected drug dealer when the man’s accomplice walked up and shot him three times. Phillips, an Air Force veteran and a married father of two, died at the scene.

The shooter, Ted Vincent Carter, then 23, pleaded guilty to murdering Phillips and received a life sentence. Marshall Demetrius Moyd, then 26, was found guilty of murder and robbery at trial and was sentenced to 68 years.

In June 2003, officer Rodney Pocceschi was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop on Dam Neck Road. Pocceschi, 33, made the stop after getting a call about a robbery at a nearby restaurant. The suspect also was killed during an exchange of gunfire with the officer.

Donations to help support the families of Girvin and Reese are being collected by the Virginia Beach Police Foundation through it’s website at www.virginiabeachpolicefoundation.org. Jake Jacoks, a former Virginia Beach police chief and the president of the foundation, said every penny donated will go to the families.

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