Six Philadelphia police officers were shot after a gunman opened fire while serving a warrant in the north section of the city Wednesday, sparking an hours-long standoff that was continuing into the night, officials said. Two officers were trapped upstairs for hours, before they were safely freed along with three others, police said.All of the officers who were shot had been released from the hospital by 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. More than five hours after the gunfire began, the trapped officers were evacuated by police SWAT team members, a police spokesman tweeted around 9:40 p.m.
A large police presence responded to a shooting incident about 4:30 p.m. in a residential area of the Nicetown neighborhood. One male shooter remained inside the residence in what police called an active situation. Police said that the incident began when an officer attempted to serve a warrant. 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 by the unidentified shooter. Police returned fire, Ross said. Just about every officer at the scene came under fire at some point, he said. The Philadelphia Police Department said that six officers were shot and taken to area hospitals with non-life- threatening injuries. One officer who was injured in a vehicle crash while responding to the scene was being admitted to a hospital, a police spokesman said.
A witness who lives close to the shooting told NBC Philadelphia that she heard a series of shots, what she said felt like 100, and could smell what seemed to be gunpowder as the shootout unfolded. The unidentified woman told NBC Philadelphia that it felt "like a war." The nearby campus for Temple University's Health Sciences Center was placed on lockdown as the situation unfolded, but the shelter in place order has been lifted.
