Nicola Cotton, a New Orleans police officer, was shot dead by a rape suspect Monday.
Cotton, 24, approached the man who was wanted for questioning over a rape in her police cruiser and began questioning him yesterday.
When she tried to handcuff him he attacked her, and a seven-minute fight ensued. The officer managed to use her radio during the struggle to call for back-up, but the man grabbed her weapon and shot her several times, said police Superintendent Warren Riley.
The suspect, Bernel Johnson, 44, stayed on the scene until other police arrived. Johnson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Riley said several witnesses saw the shooting in a car park near a busy intersection in a crime-plagued neighborhood of New Orleans.
According to Johnson's relatives, Johnson is a paranoid schizophrenic transient with no history of sexual assault. He was originally a suspect due to a misspelling of his name.
Bernell Johnson, also 44, who pleaded guilty to forcible rape in 1998, and has been arrested for other offenses.
Cotton was among the first graduates of the police academy after Hurricane Katrina.
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