BY Morgan Zalot and Derrick Moore
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — Blaring sirens, gunfire and the sound of helicopters rocked Center City late Thursday night after a chance encounter between police and a shooting suspect led to a wild chase that culminated with a cop opening fire on a man.
“I wanted to peek my head out, but I thought something pretty bad was going on outside,” said Andrew Westerhaus, 35, who lives a few blocks from where police say the chase ended near 24th and Locust streets.
The drama started when two officers were on patrol near 27th and Tasker streets about 10:15 p.m. and spotted a man in a crowd firing a gun, Chief Inspector Scott Small said. The cops pulled up to investigate, and the shooter and two other men jumped into a car and took off, leading them on a roughly minutelong chase through South Philly and Center City.
Small said that during the pursuit, one man tossed a gun out the car window near 27th and South streets. The 9 mm Beretta was recovered by police.
A few blocks away, on a quiet edge of Center City near 24th and Locust, the men stopped the car and bailed, police said. There, an officer fired one shot and hit a suspect in the arm. That man, age 21, was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in stable condition.
Police said they recovered a second gun, believed to have been dropped by the suspect shot by police, at the scene. Also dropped near the suspects’ car were two bags of heroin and several small bags of marijuana, cops said.
Police also arrested the two other suspects near the scene. It was unclear which man fired the shot in the crowd.
The day after the incident rocked her neighborhood, Meg Kajino, 39, who has lived near 21st and Bainbridge for a decade, said she was still shaken up.
“In the past five or six years, people seem to be more desperate,” Kajino said. “It’s pretty frightening.”
Small said no civilians or police were injured. At the initial shooting scene near 27th and Tasker, cops found an unoccupied car with bullet holes.
No charges had been filed in the incident as of Friday evening.
As is protocol with police shootings, the officer who fired his gun was taken to be interviewed at Internal Affairs.
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