AR-15 rifle used to kill Huntsville police officer

Juan Robert Laws shot and killed Huntsville police officer Garrett Crumby with an AR-15 rifle, according to court records filed Monday.

Laws, who is charged with capital murder, is also expected to face additional charges for the wounding of Officer Albert Morin and a woman last week. Huntsville police said Tuesday that Morin had been removed from a ventilator.

The records state that Laws “intentionally” caused Crumby’s death by shooting him with the AR-15.

The AR-15 is a powerful weapon that has been used in high-profile shootings across the country such as the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012 and Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in 2018. The Washington Post recently published an investigative series of reports on AR-15 rifles.

Laws had an initial court appearance last week. His next hearing is scheduled for April 19. He remains jailed without bond.

His court-appointed attorneys, Larry Marsili and Bruce Gardner, were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

In an unrelated case, Laws also faces two counts of second-degree assault in the shooting of two people last year. Those cases were sent to a Madison County grand jury last month after Laws waived his preliminary hearing.

Crumby was buried Monday in Tuscaloosa following a funeral in Huntsville.

The deadly shooting happened March 28 when the police officers responded to a “shots fired” call at an apartment complex on the 4600 block of Governors House Drive near Interstate 565. Huntsville police said a woman was found at the scene with non-life-threatening injuries. Two children were also at the shooting scene, video footage from the scene showed.