By Andrew Maykuth
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — An off-duty Philadelphia police officer shot and killed a man in a North Philadelphia bar early Sunday after a fistfight escalated into deadly gunfire, police said.
Police said two men began fighting about 1:30 a.m. on the second floor of the Myspace Lounge, in the 3300 block of Germantown Avenue.
One man pulled out a gun and fired, wounding the man with whom he had been fighting and fatally injuring a bystander, said Lt. Ray Evers, police spokesman.
The off-duty officer, who was in plain clothes, witnessed the altercation and pulled out a firearm as the assailant was about to leave the lounge, and ordered the man to drop his gun, Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross said.
“He announced himself as an officer,” he said.
The assailant wheeled and fired in the officer’s direction, Ross said. The officer, who was assigned to the Police Athletic League unit, fired three times, striking the man, Ross said.
Witnesses identified the assailant as Raheem Rose, 22. He stumbled out of the lounge and died during surgery at Temple University Hospital, whose emergency room is near the lounge.
The officer had been attending a fund-raising event at the club earlier in the evening, Ross said.
Police did not identify the officer, who will be put on administrative duties while the department’s Internal Affairs unit investigates the shooting, said Evers.
Pending notification of relatives, police did not release the names of the dead man or the man injured in the shooting.
According to court records, Rose was awaiting trial on charges of aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, and resisting arrest in connection with an arrest last May.
He had also been sentenced to one to two years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court in 2007.
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