Homicide suspect caught in Cambridge manhunt
A Harvard grad, wanted for allegedly killing his father in Philadelphia, sent waves of fear through Cambridge Tuesday as the police pursuit put the university on lockdown.
Police caught Sohan Panjrolia, 31, around 12:45 p.m. after searching for him in Harvard Square based on a tip that he’d be in the area. Panjrolia is suspected of killing his father with an assault rifle over the weekend, according to police. Fearing he might be armed, Harvard University issued a shelter-in-place advisory.
Fergal Burke, a contractor at Harvard, was in a student lounge across the street when he got an alert about the lockdown on his phone and became alarmed that there might be “a man outside with a gun.” Police were “everywhere,” he said, dressed in “full tactical gear.”
“With everything going on this week, you know, it makes you nervous,” Burke said. “I was thinking about what happened this week in Texas and all the other places and so, a bit crazy to see it in your own backyard.”
The multiagency manhunt involved the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, the Cambridge police, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Boston and Philadelphia, Sufjrolia folk County Sheriff’s Office, MBTA Transit Police and Harvard University Police.
Carmen Nobel, a director in a Harvard journalism program, has been researching mass shooters after the two devastating shootings in Ohio and Texas over the weekend that took the lives of at least 31 people in a matter of 13 hours.
“In light of all the events of the past week of mass shootings,” Nobel said, “it made it that much scarier.”
Local businesses, including an IHOP next to the parking garage where Panleft his car, also went into lockdown.
“It was scary, especially because of everything that’s been going on and the shootings all around,” IHOP worker Sara Geer said.
“I locked the doors,” IHOP manager Lolo Hayes said, “I tried not to panic but like she said, with everything that’s going on right now in the world, to see that and be stuck in the building … .”
Panjrolia was arrested at a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop around the corner from the garage. Police said later he was not armed when he was apprehended, but they had not yet searched his car to determine if he had a weapon. He was brought to the Cambridge Police Department for booking and will be charged as a fugitive at the Cambridge District Court today, beginning proceedings to return him to Pennsylvania.