Officer shoots, kills robbery suspect after he pulls gun, police say

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police said a man shot and killed by an officer overnight was a suspect in connection with an armed robbery that happened last week.

Police said overnight, they were told to be on the lookout for a red moped that had been seen in the metro area and matched a description of one leaving the scene of an armed robbery last week along Beatties Ford Road.

Officers said they saw the moped late Monday night and tried to pull the rider over. Instead, police said, Michael Laney took off, eventually stopping in front of a house on Crestview Drive in west Charlotte.

On Tuesday afternoon, Eyewitness News spoke to Michael Laney's cousin, Fredrick Laney, who said he saw Michael dump the moped in the front yard and that police caught up with him on the front door step.

"He got on him saying, ‘Quit resisting, quit resisting, quit resisting,’" Laney said, as he described what he saw from the front door.

Police said Laney had a gun on him and that Officer Ryan Shields struggled to get the weapon from him.

That's when another officer, Anthony Holzhauer, shot and killed Laney.

Fredrick said he didn't think police needed to shoot him.

"They had him. They had him to where they could put handcuffs on him because he said, ‘OK, you're going to break my arm. OK,’" Laney said.

At a news conference Tuesday morning, Police Chief Rodney Monroe said it was a life-and-death situation for his officers.

"It just got to the point where the officer felt that if he lost control of that situation, he or his partner could very well have been shot," Monroe said.

WSOC