Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — Down the street from the Germantown playground where Vincent Parsons was fatally shot Friday by police, the men who gathered at a barbershop yesterday were still simmering over the way the cops chasing Parsons handled the situation.
“The way those police cars came flying down [a ramp in the park], there could have been children playing there,” said Raymond Alexander, who said he had just arrived at the park with his 5-year-old son when the shooting started about noon Friday.
Witnesses said that 20 to 30 shots had been fired in the presence of as many as 20 children after police chased Parsons into the Happy Hollow playground, at Wayne Avenue and Wyneva Street.
Chief Inspector Scott Small said after the shooting that Parsons, 26, had been wanted on two warrants for gun violations and had fired at police first. Small said that only a small number of children had been in the city Recreation Department playground.
Yesterday, a Philadelphia police spokeswoman said the three undercover officers who opened fire on Parsons have been placed on desk duty while Internal Affairs investigates, which is the practice when an officer discharges his weapon.
Meanwhile, Parsons’ family was preparing for his funeral today, which is private. They held a viewing for him at a West Philadelphia funeral home last night.
Sabrina Williams, Parsons’ mother, acknowledged yesterday that her son was no angel, but said he wasn’t a monster either, and didn’t deserve tdie.
“He was a fugitive,” she said. “He was wanted, but he was not wanted for murder or attempted murder.
“Although my son was wanted on gun charges, he never killed anyone. . . . Mayor Goode’s nephew was gunned down in the same neighborhood.”
She was referring to the January 2008 fatal police shooting about a block away of Timothy “Tee” Goode, a grandnephew of former Mayor Wilson Goode.
Williams said her son and Timothy Goode had been best friends.
Goode’s family has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming that police violated his civil rights when they shot him in the back.
Police had said that Timothy Goode was involved in a drug deal when he was shot on Jan. 11, 2008, and that although he was running away, he had turned around and aimed a gun at police.
In Friday’s incident, police said that they found a semiautomatic Ruger handgun and two bundles of crack cocaine on Parsons, who had been sentenced to prison twice - once on drug charges and another time for robbery, according to online court records.
But what lingered with neighbors yesterday was the horror that a shoot-out had erupted in Happy Hollow.
Leah Collins, 21, was in the playground with two nieces and a nephew yesterday afternoon. They were among only five children playing yesterday.
“I feel bad for the kids who were here [when the shooting occurred],” Collins said. “They may be traumatized.”
She said she hadn’t brought her relatives to the playground until yesterday because she hadn’t wanted them to see the yellow police tape.
“I was even traumatized just thinking about what if I had brought my son here that day,” Collins said. “The playground was a crime scene.”
Copyright 2010 Philadelphia Daily News