Had he lived until Sunday, he would have been 26 years old. Instead, Mt. Holly Police officer Tyler Avery Herndon was shot and killed while answering a call to a breaking & entering early Friday morning (Dec. 11th). A graduate of Kings Mtn. High School who got his education in law enforcement at UNC-Charlotte, Herndon had been with the Mt. Holly Police for a little less than two years.
Two other Mt. Holly officers and one from the Gaston County Police answered a call to a breakin at Mt. Holly Car Wash & Arcade on Beatty Drive shortly before 3:30 Friday morning. A shootout between a suspect and officers developed and both the suspect and Officer Herndon were injured. Herndon died; the suspect, 24-year-old Joshua Tyler Funk of Mt. Holly, who had only minor injuries, survived. He was charged with first degree murder.
Funk was booked in Gaston County, then transferred to the Cleveland County Jail, standard procedure in any case of an officer-involved shooting.
Harris Funeral Home in Kings Mtn. had not yet announced funeral plans for Officer Herndon on Saturday. Funk will have his first appearance in court on Monday.
The other officers were not injured; they have been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation.