By Natalie Pompilio, Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia police officers shot and killed a 25-year-old man they said pulled a gun and opened fire when they tried to stop him for questioning in West Oak Lane early yesterday.
Philip H. Fountain was shot three times - twice in the chest and once in the arm - after pulling a .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver and shooting at three officers, striking one in the thumb and hitting a police vehicle, Cpl. Jim Pauley, a police spokesman, said. Fountain was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital shortly after the 1:15 a.m. gunfight at 67th Street and Ogontz Avenue.
The injured officer, Thomas Schaffling, 21, was treated at Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he received four stitches, and was released.
The shooting is being investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs and Homicide divisions, which is routine, Pauley said.
Yesterday morning, two officers responding to a report of a disturbance in the 6300 block of Gratz Avenue heard gunshots from the area of 67th Street and Ogontz Avenue, Pauley said. There, they saw Fountain standing on the corner with a cell phone in one hand and the other hand in his pocket.
The officers ordered Fountain to show both hands, but he ran, Pauley said. They caught him, but he struggled and broke away. Caught again near the same corner, he pulled a gun and began firing, Pauley said.
Schaffling, who was responding to a radio call for assistance, was struck by a bullet. Another hit the front fender of a patrol car on the driver’s side.
One or both of the two original officers, whose names were not released, fired back at Fountain, Pauley said.
This was the second fatal police shooting in two weeks. On Oct. 18, a police officer shot and killed William Baylor, 22, on Hunting Park Avenue near Darien Street. Police said Baylor pointed a .357-caliber weapon at them when they saw him chasing and firing at another man. Baylor ignored an order to drop the gun, police said.