Face of Nation : An armed suspect accused of wounding six officers in north Philadelphia during a nearly eight-hour standoff surrendered early Thursday, officials said.
The gunfire began Wednesday afternoon as police tried to serve an arrest warrant, police said. Shortly after midnight, police spokesman Sgt. Eric Gripp tweeted that a suspect was in custody and that SWAT officers were clearing the house. Police on the scene said that the suspect surrendered without incident. The suspect was taken to a hospital for treatment because police had used tear gas, The Associated Press reported.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. said Wednesday night.Two officers were trapped upstairs for hours before they were safely freed along with three others by SWAT officers, the police commissioner said.
In a press conference early Thursday, Ross said the suspect had prior arrests, but his office is not discussing the details of the charges at this time. President Donald Trump in a tweet Thursday morning said the suspect “should never have been allowed to be on the streets” because of his “very dangerous criminal record.”
All of the officers who were shot had been released from the hospitalby late Wednesday night. The city’s mayor said that one of those officers, who is the father of two boys, suffered a graze wound to his head and could have been killed.
Ross said that officers were already inside and in the rear of the building when the gunman opened fire, forcing them to escape a barrage of bullets through windows and doors. Officers took cover behind cars and blocked off surrounding streets as they were fired upon. Police returned fire, Ross said. Just about every officer at the scene came under fire at some point, he said.
SWAT team members were able to stealthily extract the two trapped officers and others, and police don’t believe the gunman was aware of the operation that freed them, Ross said.
