UPDATE – Thursday – 3/7/2013, 1 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – Officer Laboy’s wife reports he has verbally responded to questions, is swallowing well and eating applesauce. On her daily journal, Suzanne Laboy writes, “He continues to amaze me.”
EARLIER – Friday – 3/1/2013 07:25 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – Alexandria police now believe that Officer Peter Laboy never got off his police motorcycle when he was shot and critically wounded this week.
Investigators tell ABC 7 that Laboy was found in the street next to his motorcycle. He may not have had any prior contact with the man driving the yellow cab, Kashif Bashir, ABC 7 reports.
Police initially said that Laboy pulled over the cab, which officers had been looking for, and was shot during the traffic stop.
But he never told dispatchers to assign him to a traffic stop for the cab, Commander Jody Donaldson told ABC 7.
“We don’t know how quick that interaction took place and really what happened there,” Donaldson said.
Investigators are still trying to determine how many shots were fired, where the shooter was, and whether the two men spoke to one another.
Police also say that before the shooting, Bashir apparently visited a store in Old Town Wednesday morning and employees called police to report that a man was acting suspiciously and making them feel uncomfortable.
They gave the license plate number for Bashir’s cab to another officer who came to take the report. The officer asked for other police to look out for the cab.
That’s when Laboy responded saying he would look for the cab. Soon after Laboy responded, police started receiving 911 calls that an officer was down at the intersection of St. Asaph and Wilkes streets, ABC 7 says.
Police say Bashir has been uncooperative, and detectives still want to talk to anyone who witnessed Laboy’s shooting.
Laboy remains in critical condition. A site to keep up with Laboy’s condition has been set up here.
Bashir has been charged with malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. His next court date is April 10.
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