ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Philadelphia post office now bears the name of a fallen police officer with ties to Allentown.
Friends, family and former colleagues on Sunday dedicated a Bustleton Avenue post office to Christopher Fitzgerald, according to various reports.
Fitzgerald, a 31-year-old sergeant in the Temple University Police Department, was shot and killed Feb. 18, 2023, while responding to an incident near campus.
Miles Pfeffer, now 20, pleaded guilty in June to murder of a law enforcement officer, robbery and firearms charges. He also was accused of committing a carjacking shortly after shooting Fitzgerald.
Pfeffer, who was arrested at his mother's home in Bucks County, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, court records show.
Former correctional officer
Fitzgerald worked as a correctional officer at the Lehigh County Jail in 2014 before joining the Philadelphia Police Academy.
Fitzgerald served on the Temple University police force for less than 18 months before he was killed. He had four children with his wife.
His father, Joel Fitzgerald, served as Allentown’s police chief from December 2013 to September 2015 under then-Mayor Ed Pawlowski.
Joel Fitzgerald in January 2024 told the Philadelphia Inquirer he wanted to see Pfeffer face the death penalty for killing his son.
“What we’d like to see is this person to go through the pain that our son went through, to go through the suffering that our family is going through,” he said last year.
Philadelphia officials in June 2023 renamed the block where Fitzgerald was killed to honor him.
Fitzgerald was the first Temple University police officer to die in the line of duty.
