FBI offers $25,000 reward for rookie LAPD cop wanted for murder

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The FBI on Friday offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a rookie Los Angeles police officer thought to have fled to Texas after allegedly killing a man in a fight. Henry Solis, a 27-year-old probationary officer, is accused of shooting Salome Rodriguez Jr. multiple times on March 13 near several nightclubs in downtown Pomona, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. Solis was off duty at the time. In a fugitive warrant affidavit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week, an FBI agent wrote that Solis told family members after the murder that he would never be seen again and then contacted his father, who drove him from Southern California to Texas. According to the affidavit, Victor Solis later told FBI agents that he had driven his son to El Paso, Texas, and dropped him off at a bus station and that he did not know where the younger man was. El Paso is just across the border from Juarez, Mexico, nearly 700 miles southeast of Pomona. The Los Angeles Police Department fired Solis earlier this week after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the murder of Rodriguez. In announcing the $25,000 reward for Solis on Friday, the FBI said that he should be considered armed and dangerous, as well as a suicide risk. The agency said Solis had ties to Juarez and asked the public to contact an FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate with information on him. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Trott)