Off-duty Philadelphia SWAT cop 'justified' in shooting and killing armed robbery suspect, investigators say

A guy who shoots at cops must have a very low IQ

An off-duty SWAT officer who shot and killed an armed robbery suspect in the Philadelphia suburb of Olney Saturday afternoon appears to have been justified in shooting him, investigators announced Sunday morning.

At around 2:30pm on Saturday the cop, wearing blue jeans and a black sweatshirt, saw a man in his twenties robbing an elderly man and told the suspect to stop and raise his hands - but the suspect instead opened fire on the officer, officials say.

The officer returned fire, hitting the shooter at least once, NBC 10 reported. The man ran away, but fell down in a nearby parking lot.

He allegedly reached for his gun again while on the ground and the cop fired again, hitting him a second time - then the suspect ran again.

This time, officials say, the suspect collapsed at the corners of Broad and Chew streets. The officer then kept his gun pointed at the man while he waited for backup to arrive.

Witness Bryan Hines told ABC 6, 'You could see where he got shot at on the hip. He wasn't moving. [The officer] kept saying don't move, but we knew he wasn't going to move.'

Once police backup arrived, Hines said, an officer removed a firearm from the suspect's body.  'I watched them take the gun off him,' he said. 'He had like a chrome .32 or something - a chrome revolver.'

The suspect was taken to Einstein hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:06pm, according to ABC.

The police investigation is ongoing, NBC reported, but that at this early stage the officers actions appeared to be justified.

The robbery victim was injured in the initial incident and went to hospital for stitches, police told NBC 10. No police officers were hurt.

Officials had declined to release the names of anyone involved at the time of writing.

Original report here


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