A Philadelphia police officer died Saturday after a gunman shot him and another officer who had answered an overnight call about an armed man in West Philadelphia, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said.
Officer Shane Seiber, 40, a ten-year veteran with a 7-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, was hit three times. The second officer, 33 and a father of five, was struck 12 times. Bethel said that officer is stable but “not out of the woods yet,” 6ABC News reported. Both were taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Officers from the 19th District were sent to the scene just after 12:20 a.m. for a report of a man with a gun on the porch, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The shots came soon after the officers reached the porch, about half an hour after dispatch. The gunman then reportedly ran through an alley and fired at other officers, missing them. Police found him in a tree and arrested him.
Investigators recovered a shotgun and two handguns. One of the handguns had been taken from a wounded officer, Bethel said.
Seiber’s wife and relatives were with him at the hospital when he died. “He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today,” Bethel said. Police sources told CBS News Philadelphia that Seiber had recently finished SWAT training and hoped to join the unit.
Mayor Cherelle Parker, who said the officers were “badly wounded,” used the briefing to urge state lawmakers to expand Pennsylvania’s involuntary commitment law to cover substance use disorder and other behavioral conditions. “I don’t apologize for it,” she said. Officials have not tied the suspect to either.
Police have not publicly named the man in custody or said what prompted the shooting. Law enforcement sources have identified him to the Inquirer as Eric Lewis, a Philadelphia Water Department employee.
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