RICHMOND - Attacks by a serial sniper prompted Gov. Mark R. Warner to shield law enforcement from budget cuts and layoffs in the first round of reductions the governor announced, an administration official said Wednesday.

Warner had planned to subject the State Police and state support for local law-enforcement agencies to some of the same cuts other state agencies, services and programs felt as he trimmed $828 million from the two-year state budget.

On Friday, however, the shooting death of a 53-year-old Philadelphia man as he gassed up his car at an Exxon station in Spotsylvania County and the massive police dragnet it provoked persuaded Warner to spare cuts to law enforcement, Finance Secretary John Bennett said.

“One thing that made the governor think twice about it that we did not know what the overtime demands would be,” said Bennett, who has worked with Warner for weeks on cuts necessary to fill a $1.5 billion budget gap.

Friday’s shooting combined with a similar fatal shooting earlier last week in Manassas left local police looking to the state for assistance from State Police officers and financial aid from the state to pay overtime for officers. Another fatal sniper shooting took place in Fairfax County on Monday night.

“When one of their responsibilities was to help track down the sniper, we thought it was not a good time to take away resources,” Bennett said. “We thought it was better to be cautious.”

That doesn’t necessarily shield State Police or other law-enforcement organizations from another round of cuts when Warner submits his proposed amendments to the two-year state budget to the General Assembly on Dec. 20.

The cuts that Warner announced Tuesday night will mean 1,837 layoffs of state employees.