Shooting witness: 'Just wish I could have helped him'
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The man who witnessed the shooting death of a Maplewood police officer on Saturday morning says called the incident "a cold-blooded execution.:
Bill Langevin, a former police officer and firefighter in St. Paul, said he was out for a morning run on Saturday when Sgt. Joe Bergeron drove by in his squad car, waved and smiled.
Moments later, Langevin said he watched as a pair of carjacking suspects stepped up to Bergeron's open squad car door, and one of them shot the police sergeant in the head.
"This was just a cold-blooded execution," Langevin told MPR's Morning Edition. "That they just wanted to kill a police officer and they just murdered and executed him."
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Langevin said he ran immediately to the squad car to help, and saw that Bergeron had been killed.
"I just reacted without thinking," Langevin said. "I just wished I could have helped him, but he was so mortally wounded. That's the hard part about it ... It's just tragic and I feel so bad for his family."
The suspected shooter in the case, Jason Jones, was killed during a six-hour manhunt for Bergeron's killer. Another suspect, Joshua Martin, 21, was arrested later in the day with help from a description from Langevin.
Martin was charged Monday with second-degree murder and is being held on $2 million bail. He could face indictment for first-degree murder in the case.
Authorities have released two others, a brother and sister from St. Paul, who were arrested Monday on suspicion of helping Martin evade police before his arrest. Officials say the two could still be charged at a later date.
Click the audio link to listen to the full interview. Listeners should be warned that the conversation includes some graphic descriptions of what Langevin saw.
