Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — A man who shot a police officer who was trying to stop him from carjacking a woman was arrested on Monday, and charges were pending against him and another man who was with him, authorities said.
Officer James McCullough was shot once in the left leg on Sunday night and was in stable condition on Monday.
The officer and his partner were flagged down by a woman who reported being carjacked by two men at gunpoint, police Capt. James Clark said.
The men were still with the car, and McCullough grappled briefly with one of them before both fled on foot, Clark said. The officers pursued, and one man turned and shot McCullough in the leg, he said. The officer returned fire but didn’t hit the man, then he applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and was driven to a hospital by his partner.
A couple of minutes before the carjacking, the men apparently robbed another man at gunpoint and took several items from him, Clark said. That caught up with the robber who hadn’t fired at police as he fled the carjacking site toward a transit station, Clark said.
“He actually ran past the first individual, who he had robbed, and his friends, who caught up with him (and) physically subdued him until the police came to arrest him,” Clark said.
The other man was arrested the next day. Undercover narcotics officers spotted him, arrested him without incident and recovered a gun, Clark said.
The officer who was shot did “an absolutely outstanding job” in going after the men, grappling with one and giving chase before being shot, the police captain said.
“It obviously could have been a lot worse, and we’re very happy that it was not a much more serious injury to the police officer,” he said.
Ballistics tests were being run on the weapon recovered from the men, but police believe it was the gun used to shoot the officer, Clark said. The shooter has a lengthy record with 14 arrests, he said.
“He is a dangerous individual, obviously,” Clark said. “We’re very happy to get him off the streets as quickly as we did.”
Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. called the case an example of the dangers officers face daily.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press