Pennsylvania police 'close' to capture of suspected killer Eric Frein
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Version 0 of 1. The survivalist charged in a deadly ambush at a state police barracks 10 days ago will be caught, Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett vowed Monday, as a police official said authorities believe they are hot on his trail. Corbett discussed the manhunt for 31-year-old Eric Frein at a news conference in Blooming Grove, near the barracks where Frein is charged with killing one trooper and seriously wounded another. “I feel confident that we should be able to apprehend this individual. I am very positive about that,” he said. The governor thanked the hundreds of law enforcement officials who are methodically searching the rural, rugged north-eastern Pennsylvania terrain. “They are putting their life on the line for someone who has the intended purpose of killing police officers,” Corbett said. Pennsylvania state police on Sunday said they were “confident” Frein was in the search area after its trackers had located items abandoned or hidden in the woods, suggesting a plan that had been in place for “months or years”. The search area is narrowing, and state police are following up on “very credible tips,” state police Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens said Monday. “I do believe that we are close to him at this point,” Bivens said at the news conference. There were scattered social media reports on Monday morning that Frein had been surrounded. On 12 September, Frein allegedly shot and killed corporal Bryon Dickson as he was leaving a remote police barracks in Blooming Grove, a mountain town just outside the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border. Trooper Alex Douglass was also shot and seriously wounded in the shooting. Though officials said Frein was targeting law enforcement, tension has saturated the communities he had grown up in. Law enforcement vehicles have been prevalent in the streets and area schools in the region for several days as a precaution. As the manhunt has dragged on, sport competitions, church services and community events have been cancelled. Residents of the densely-forested area were also told to stay out of the woods and refrain from shooting guns until Frein was found. False alarms have repeatedly rung through Monroe and Pike counties, at one point causing a mass police response near one of the community colleges Frein attended. Area residents’ social media feeds have been clogged with photos of Frein as community members did what they could to help find him. Last week, he was placed on America’s Most Wanted list, with an $175,000 reward attached to his capture. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |