The Greensboro, North Carolina police officer who was slain in a supermarket shooting on Monday has ties to New Jersey.
Officer Michael Horan spent more than two decades with the Beach Haven Beach Patrol before joining the Greensboro Police Department in 2018.
Officer Horan was tragically shot while responding to a report at a Food Lion two days before Christmas. The suspect, 34-year-old Tarell Isaac McMillian, also led police on a high-speed chase before being apprehended hours later, 150 miles away from the grocery shop.
According to the Greensboro Police Department, Horan was an excellent officer with an outstanding reputation. He was both a husband and a father.
Horan worked in the department’s patrol bureau.
The North Carolina Sheriff’s Association described the shooting as “a senseless tragedy” and stated that it “demonstrates the dangers that law enforcement officers face every day they are on duty.”
“He just made people laugh”
Michael Lawrence was the previous chief of the Beach Haven Beach Patrol. He referred to Horan as a consummate professional.
“He was continuously scanning and looking. “He would help people get off the beach and walk them home,” Lawrence explained.
Horan finished boot camp for the United States Coast Guard in 2000 and went on to work as a maritime enforcement expert.
“While he was doing his basic training in Cape May, in his free time, he would come up and help us out,” Lawrence told me.
His fellow cops and guards are now mourning Horan, also known as “Junior” on the beach.
“He just made everyone chuckle. People felt at ease around him. “You just wanted to be around him,” Lawrence explained. “He was one of those magnetic type of individuals.”
How the shooting and chase unfolded
Officer Horan was dispatched to the Food Lion on Lawndale Drive, just off Interstate 840 in northern Greensboro, after receiving reports of a man with a pistol inside the shop shortly before 11 a.m. Monday.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation, Horan encountered the suspect shortly after arriving, and they engaged in a brief scuffle. Greensboro police claim McMillian then pulled out a revolver and shot the officer before getting into a car and driving away.
The SBI stated that Horan did not have time to draw or discharge his firearm.
“The circumstances surrounding the shooting are currently being investigated,” Assistant Police Chief MJ Harris stated during a news conference Monday afternoon.
According to the SBI, the chase began in Johnston County when deputies saw and pursued the suspicious car. Sampson County deputies joined in, and the Highway Patrol took control.
The chase came to a stop at Exit 355 (NC-403) near Warsaw, on the Duplin County line.
The SBI said charges were pending.
Horan is the second Greensboro police officer killed in the last 12 months. Officer Philip Dale Nix was off duty when he was shot and killed in a Sheetz convenience shop on December 30, 2023, while attempting to stop a crime in progress. Three people were detained in connection with Nix’s shooting killing.