Parolee guilty of killing police officer, construction worker

NEW YORK, July 28 (UPI) -- A New York City parolee was convicted Monday of killing a police officer on Long Island and then gunning down a construction worker for his car.

After a seven-week trial in Mineola, N.Y., Darrell Fuller, 34, was found guilty of the first-degree murders of Nassau County Police Officer Arthur Lopez, 29, and Raymond Facey, 58, a Jamaican immigrant who lived in New York's Brooklyn borough. Fuller faces life with no parole.

James Carver, president of the Police Benevolent Association, praised the verdict, describing Lopez, a decorated member of the Emergency Services Unit as "a building block of this department." Carver said Facey was "brutally assassinated" because he pulled over on the Cross Island Parkway to use his cellphone.

Prosecutors said that Fuller, who lived in the borough of Queens near the Nassau County line, got into a crash on Oct. 23, 2012, and drove away. He shot Lopez when the police officer came toward him with a stun gun.

Fuller then decided to exchange his disabled Honda for another car.

Fuller's lawyer argued that there was no real evidence his client shot Lopez. Lopez had bullet wounds when he was arrested, ones police said were self-inflicted in an effort to pose as another victim.

At the time of the killings, Fuller was on parole after serving a sentence for attempted murder.