LOWER BURRELL, Pa., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A western Pennsylvania man who died in a shootout that also killed a police officer had said he had 13 bullets for police and one for himself, an officer said.
Derek Kotecki, 42, an 18-year veteran of the Lower Burrell police department, and Charles Post, 33, who was wanted on an attempted murder charge, were killed Wednesday evening outside a Dairy Queen, the Tarentum Valley News reported. Kotecki, the Lower Burrell K-9 officer, and other officers went to the Dairy Queen after getting a tip Post, a Lower Burrell resident, was there.
Post had been charged with opening fire on his boss outside a hotel in nearby New Kensington Oct. 2.
New Kensington Detective Sgt. Dino DiGiacobbe told the newspaper a Lower Burrell officer had called Post and tried to convince him to surrender. Post responded by saying he had 14 bullets in his gun -- "Thirteen for the cops and one for me."
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Investigators had not determined if Post, whose escape from the scene was blocked by a fence, was killed by police or himself.
Post had a long history of arrests for offenses that included assault, drug charges, drunken driving and traffic violations.
Kotecki is believed to be the first police officer killed in the line of duty in Lower Burrell, a small city on the Allegheny River about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
"Derek was a first-class individual and he was a wonderful officer, husband, father, son," Councilman David Regoli told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "He represented the city as well as any officer could represent the city."
