A suspect was in custody in Philadelphia early Thursday, nearly eight hours after a gunman opened fire on police and wounded six officers in an armed standoff, officials said.
NBC Philadelphia reported that the man surrendered and was seen in a video exiting the home with his hands up. Police spokesman Sgt. Eric Gripp tweeted shortly after midnight that SWAT officers were clearing the house.
Police were serving a narcotics warrant at the home in the northern part of the city when a gunman opened fire. Two officers were trapped upstairs for hours before they were safely freed along with three others by SWAT officers, the police commissioner said.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. said Wednesday night.
All of the officers who were shot had been released from the hospital by late Wednesday night. The city’s mayor said that one of those officers, who is the father of two boys, suffered a graze wound to his head and could have been killed.
More than five hours into the standoff, the trapped officers were evacuated, a police spokesman tweeted around 9:40 p.m.
“SWAT was able to successfully extract the two police officers that were trapped upstairs as well as three prisoners,” Ross said Wednesday night.
A large police presence responded to a shooting incident about 4:30 p.m. in a residential area of the Nicetown neighborhood. One male shooter remained inside the residence in what police called an active situation.
Police said that the incident began when an officer attempted to serve a warrant. Ross said that officers were already inside and in the rear of the building when the gunman opened fire, forcing them to escape a barrage of bullets through windows and doors.
“This was a narcotics warrant that went awry almost immediately, and the officers came under fire,” Ross said. He said officers were in different areas of the building to quickly secure it, and some became trapped upstairs.
Officers took cover behind cars and blocked off surrounding streets as they were fired upon by the unidentified shooter. Police returned fire, Ross said. Just about every officer at the scene came under fire at some point, he said.
The Philadelphia Police Department said that six officers were shot and taken to area hospitals with non-life- threatening injuries.
One officer who was injured in a vehicle crash while responding to the scene was being admitted to a hospital, a police spokesman said.
SWAT team members were able to stealthily extract the two trapped officers and others, and police don’t believe the gunman was aware of the operation that freed them, Ross said.
Police have not said what kind of weapon or weapons the gunman was firing.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said the suspect has a criminal history and “was able to get these weapons, and a large magazine, a large amount of bullets.” The mayor criticized federal and state governments for what he said was a lack of progress on gun control and an unwillingness to stand up to the National Rifle Association and others.
“So whether it’s our six officers that were shot or it’s some 15-, 17-, 20-year-old kid on the streets of Philadelphia who gets shot with guns that shouldn’t be in people’s hands — it’s aggravating, it’s saddening, and it’s just something we need to do something about,” Kenney said. ” … Our officers deserve to be protected, and they don’t deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets.”
A witness who lives close to the shooting told NBC Philadelphia that she heard a series of shots, what she said felt like 100, and could smell what seemed to be gunpowder as the shootout unfolded. The unidentified woman told NBC Philadelphia that it felt “like a war.”
The nearby campus for Temple University’s Health Sciences Center was placed on lockdown as the situation unfolded, and Police evacuated area residences and businesses.
