Nov. 13--Lauderhill police identified the veteran officer arrested Saturday night for shooting at a uniformed colleague who was in her squad car.
Officer Kristopher John Bieger, 30, faces charges of attempted first degree murder and discharging a firearm from a vehicle after the incident that led to a Davie Police Department SWAT team taking down Bieger in an Italian restaurant in front of customers and employees.
Bieger, who has been on the Lauderhill police force since Oct. 11, 2006, has been suspended without pay, said Capt. Constance Stanley in an email to media Sunday.
Lauderhill police did not identify the officer whom Bieger shot at, but she was not injured. Stanley told the Sun-Sentinel that the officers worked together on the same shift, and that both are veterans of the force.
While the victim was not injured, her patrol car suffered bullet damage from what may have been shots fired from a rifle, according to reports gleaned from police radio communications during the incident, which began at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Inverness Plaza, near Northwest 56th Avenue and West Oakland Park Boulevard.
Lauderhill police did not release additional details about the shooting, or characterize the personal relationship between the officers.
According to radio communication between police during the incident, Bieger reportedly fled the scene of the shooting in a Chevy Silverado 1500 pick up truck.
He later stopped at a Publix shopping center near the corner of Griffin and Volunteer roads, where he reportedly entered an Italian restaurant, ordered two slices of pizza, and screamed and cried into a telephone as he spoke with an unidentified Lauderhill police officer.
Customers and employees of the restaurant were ordered to seek safety in the rear of the establishment as the SWAT team moved in on Bieger, who was in the front of the restaurant.
Police were watching Bieger as he spoke on the phone, and expressed concern that he might try to force the SWAT team to shoot him, but he was arrested without further incident in the plaza's parking lot at about 10:30 p.m.
Copyright 2011 - The Miami Herald
