Gunman in Philadelphia Opens Fire on Six Police Officers – Video!

Dear Commons Community,

A gunman opened fire on police yesterday afternoon as they were serving a drug warrant in Philadelphia.  Six officers were wounded and later released from the hospital.  Philadelphia police Sgt. Eric Gripp said early this morning that the man was taken into custody after an hours-long standoff.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“The shooting began around 4:30 p.m. as officers went to a home in a north Philadelphia neighborhood of brick and stone row homes to serve a narcotics warrant in an operation “that went awry almost immediately,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said.

Many officers “had to escape through windows and doors to get (away) from a barrage of bullets,” Ross said.

The six officers who were struck by gunfire have been released from hospitals, Gripp said.

Two other officers were trapped inside the house for about five hours after the shooting broke out but were freed by a SWAT team well after darkness fell on the residential neighborhood. Three people that officers had taken into custody in the house before the shooting started were also safely evacuated, police said.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today,” Ross said.

An attorney who said he has a relationship with the suspect identified him as Maurice Hill.

The attorney, Shaka Johnson, said in an interview after the arrest that Hill called him Wednesday evening, said he was barricaded in the house and that he “wanted to try to figure out a way out without any further violence coming to anyone or himself.”

“I could sense that he was panicking and trying to figure out, how do I get out of this situation alive,” Johnson said.

We thank God no one was killed!

Tony

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