PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia police shot and killed an armed man Sunday night who was involved in a domestic incident, a carjacking and a car chase, officials said.
The wild sequence of events started around 6 p.m. Authorities said a couple was fighting in a house near 54th and Chancellor streets in West Philadelphia. According to the preliminary police account, the 47-year-old man fired a shot in the house and his girlfriend called 911.
The suspect then exited the home and carjacked a man in his pickup truck, police said.
The carjacking victim, Tony, later told NBC10 that he was in the neighborhood to pick up a friend during halftime of the Eagles game. Tony said he managed to get out of the car, but the suspect tried to shoot at him.
“I tried to start talking to him, tried to talk him down from doing whatever he was about to do and he got close to me, he swung at me, and I blocked it. He tried to hit me with the gun,” Tony said.
Tony said it appeared that the suspect tried to shoot him but the gun may have jammed. A responding officer saw the suspect and fired a shot at him, but he managed to drive off in the stolen truck, officials said.
Police pursued the suspect until he stopped at 52nd Street and Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia and got out of the truck.
“Two different officers, a sergeant and another officer, attempted to apprehend the male. They confronted him. Shots were fired again in the lot right next to the truck,” Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said.
The suspect was hit but Vanore said they were not initially sure if he was shot at the location where the carjacking occurred, in the neighborhood where he stopped, or both. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
No one else, including the officers — ages 25, 29 and 34 — who were involved, was injured.