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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Ongoing Active Shooter in Philadelphia!

Ongoing Active Shooter in Philadelphia!

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This appears to have started about 4 hours ago and is still ongoing. It apparently started while Philadelphia Police were trying to serve a warrant.

And that despite taking casualties, the Philadelphia Police Department is trying to end this without further violence.

From Philadelphia Police Department Sergeant Eric Gripp:

Update at 9:47 PM EDT

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Had just clicked submit in the last post when this came up. Philadelphia resident says:

    6 officers were shot.
    3 sustained other injuries.
    All are hospitalized.
    All are alive.
    There are two officers being held hostage
    No one knows how they are.
    Suspect still shooting. #PhillyShooting https://t.co/yaXLNv87bF— Victoria Brownworth ?️‍? (@VABVOX) August 15, 2019

  2. 2.

    Rob

    Yikes. I’m glad to read that the children in the nearby daycare establishments were finally able to leave. Thank you, Adam, for putting up this post.

    In other (stock market) news, the Nikkei 225 in Japan is down ~1.95% and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 is down 1.894%. Strap in for a bumpy Thursday.

  3. 3.

    Mary G

    Good point:

    I just watched at least 50 cops in Philadelphia struggle to stop a single active shooter on the news just now.
    Can we stop this “good guys with a gun” bullshit now? It’s a myth.
    — Dylan (@dyllyp) August 15, 2019

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: I spent a year as a criminology professor at Temple several years before going to work for the Army. I had a number of Philadelphia police officers as students.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: In this area of Philadelphia, I would not make that assumption. This is near Temple U/Temple Medical School, which is a heavily African American neighborhood and area of Philadelphia along North Broad Street.

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    MEDIA – STOP BROADCASTING TACTICAL POSITIONS OF OFFICERS

    Why, oh why, the fuck do people have to be told this? For fuck’s sake, you morons, armies don’t tweet out their plans.

    @ GenEisenhower: Yo Jerries. Here’s where we’ll be landing on the 6th! @ GenMonty Let them know where Gold and Sword are! It’ll be rad!

  10. 10.

    bbleh

    Sigh. I’m quite sure this will advance sober and informed discussion about law enforcement priorities, gun safety, and the problems of poverty.

    FWIW, that’s an area subject to the strains of both long-term North Philly poverty and current gentrification.

    So far no fatalities, several people reported released from building, officers inside reportedly NOT in hostage situation.

  13. 13.

    Chyron HR

    “We are trying to get him to come out peacefully, but he is refusing to do so.”

    “We have promised to summarily execute an unarmed black man in the shooter’s place, but he is unwilling to negotiate.”

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yep, it appears to be in between but closer to Temple Med, which is, if I’m recalling correctly within about 2 miles north of the main campus. It’s up near where Joe Frazier’s gym is/was.

  15. 15.

    Rob

    Action News on 6abc
    @6abc

    3m
    #BREAKING: Philadelphia Police Commissioner Ross confirms two officers remain trapped inside the home with the shooter.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @bbleh: Haven’t taught/lived there since June 2005. And I took SEPTA in from Elkins Park rather than try to drive in everyday and hunt for a parking space.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

  22. 22.

    Cermet

    If the trapped officers can get out, they’ll (the police) can call in an airstrike like they did once before and blow the block up …

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    This incident is very similar to one that happened in South Carolina less than a year ago. Police serving warrant taken under fire by heavily armed lunatic.

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    Here’s hoping it ends without any more violence.

    OT – aljazeera:

    Jeremy Corbyn has outlined plans to defeat a no-deal Brexit under Prime Minister Boris Johnson by securing a general election as leader of a “strictly time-limited” caretaker government after winning a no-confidence vote.

    The Labour leader would also secure an extension to the Article 50 process to delay the UK leaving the European Union past the current October 31 deadline.

    Corbyn outlined his plan on Wednesday in a letter to Westminster’s opposition leaders and key Conservative rebels including Dominic Grieve and Sir Oliver Letwin.

    […]

    Given how polarizing he is (rightly or wrongly), this seems to be a proposal that everyone who claims to not want a no-deal Brexit should be able to get behind.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Immanentize: Two cops pinned down within the house where the shooter is holed up. They want to talk him out so they can get the cops out safely.

  39. 39.

    Leto

    I have a very good friend who just missed this event. He was there in the area but left just as this started. Local news stations have been covering this non-stop since 4:30pm local. Just crazy.

  41. 41.

    Leto

    @debbie: Media is blocks away and their helicopters backed way off early because they weren’t sure if the shooters were using news coverage/social media as a way to spot/target police. Media has been working with law enforcement by saying, “Keep out of the area, don’t fly drones here, etc..” Any drones being flown are being flown by local chowderheads.

  42. 42.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    Damn. I was just there last month in Philly, albeit in the Old City, on vacation. I hope that maniac doesn’t kill anybody

  44. 44.

    Immanentize

    @Adam L Silverman: No. There used to Be a club/bar/lounge just south of Temple that was called Tommy Twelve Sattelites. It was a bar run by this group of twelve friends who would go up to NY to see shows and hear music. It was a very odd club — black patrons mostly — but they had a very nice courtyard and served quarts. Probably closed by the turn of the century, but one wild space in the 80’s.

  45. 45.

    Raven

    He must be using a shotgun or something pretty small caliber to hit 6 people all non-life threatening.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Immanentize: Okay, now I know what you’re talking about. No, I did not. I’m not even sure it was still there when I got there in 2004.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    Gawd, I wish we could just trade Trump for the barricaded police officers and be done with it.

  53. 53.

    Leto

    @Raven: at one point they thought the shooter was running out of ammo, but nope; a few mins later they were back to exchanging gunfire.

  55. 55.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Immanentize: I wasn’t living here when the MOVE thing happened and had to look up who was mayor then. It was Wilson Goode. He was recently honored (last September) with a street being named after him. That decision was understandably controversial.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    It’s refreshing to hear of someone shooting up a neighborhood without an assault weapon.

    I hope this ends without any deaths or serious injuries.

  59. 59.

    bbleh

    @Raven: I think a handgun is more likely, given that there have been periodic reports of shots fired (not recently) and that injuries did not occur all at once.

  62. 62.

    Raven

    Two women and two children were escorted by SWAT and Philadelphia Police from the scene. They told CBS3 that they were inside the home on the second floor at the time of the shootout and that police saved them.

    “I thank God for these cops,” one woman said.

  63. 63.

    Raven

    The gun battle between police and the suspect is still active. CBS3’s Greg Argos has learned the suspect has a long rifle gun and people outside their homes are being pushed back as the standoff continues.

  64. 64.

    bbleh

    @AThornton: the baseline assumption would be untrained, panicked, and now in a near-psychotic state of anxiety. Local reports, including live statements, are that several attempts at contact have been made, and there has been response but no communication.

  65. 65.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Raven: Ah OK. That’s why I had a vague feeling that Rizzo was connected to MOVE.

    Rizzo has been honored for years. There’s a bigger than lifesize statue near City Hall and a huge mural in the Italian Market area. Those are really controversial and a lot of people want one or both taken down.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Raven: Not through what most cops wear these days, which is Level III. So bullet resistant/defeating plates in a kevlar plate carrier. Provided the shots went center mass, the vest would protect them from almost all handgun rounds and a significant number of rifle rounds.

  67. 67.

    Rob

    FOX 29 Retweeted
    Lauren Dawn Johnson
    @LaurenDawnFox29

    2m
    ?
    BREAKING UPDATE
    ?
    : 2 @PhillyPolice
    who were inside the house with the shooter have been safely evacuated by SWAT! @FOX29philly

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    Latest update:

  72. 72.

    Raven

    @Immanentize:

    Of one group of anti-police demonstrators, he is reported to have said, ‘When I’m finished with them, I’ll make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.'” A reporter who covered the Rizzo years, Andrea Mitchell (now of NBC News), recounted routinely brutish behavior at the force as part of a broad pattern of Rizzo bravado.[2]

    Rizzo resigned from commissioner in 1971 to run for mayor.[3]

  77. 77.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @PaulWartenberg: Lots of information and misinformation is still flying, but it sounds like two cops were barricaded inside the house and police had no idea what their situation was, but they are now out according to Adam at #68.

    So I think there’s nobody left inside but the shooter.

  86. 86.

    Skepticat

    How depressing is it that one of my first thoughts was slight relief that it wasn’t someone out and targeting people totally at random?

  87. 87.

    Richard Guhl

    Since the Lehigh Valley is in the Philadelphia TV market, this incident was on for hours of coverage. A local online magazine mentioned that the situation was ongoing, and the comments were quite predictable with the devotees of the Gun god death cult out in full force.

  89. 89.

    Gin & Tonic

    Now that the cops are out there’s nothing stopping them from going all Dresden on the block, right?

  91. 91.

    normal liberal

    A bit of clarification regarding Rizzo and MOVE; the first incidents with MOVE where back in the 70s when Rizzo was mayor. In those days, in the argot of my youth, he was a pig’s pig; he was fond of abandoning black tie mayoral events to pop up at major crime scenes, where he would borrow a nightstick to add flair to his formalwear.
    The lethal event was in May 1996, where a core of the MOVE group had settled in the midst of a nice West Philly neighborhood, predominantly African-American, where they engaged in ongoing disturbance of the peace. The neighbors wanted action to oust them, but the city dithered. When a plan for the police to go in and evict MOVE was put together, the geniuses in charge discussed it publicly for a while, giving the group an opportunity to reinforce the house. When the operation began at 6 am on the chosen day, the neighbors having been evacuated temporarily, heavy police gunfire was returned from the house, and failed to create a means of entry.
    The cops hadn’t realized that MOVE had stockpiled ammunition and heavily reinforced doors, windows, etc. A creative solution was needed, and it rose in the form of an aerial bombing of the house, using a helicopter and a plastic explosive which the police should not have had. The person(s) who built the bomb got carried away, and blast ignited first the house packed with spare ammunition, and then the adjoining 19 row houses on the block. The fire jumped the street and took all 20 houses on the opposite side, and then another 20 houses that backed up to the initial fire.
    As I recall, there were 14 residents in the MOVE house, 8 adults (including the group’s founder, known as John Africa) and six young children. There were two survivors, one very young boy and one adult woman, both seriously burned. She went to prison, unlike any of the elected and appointed officials who served up this insanity, including the fire chief who refused to order his people to fight the fire.
    I lived in Philadelphia then, and vividly recall waking that day to the radio broadcasting the opening rounds of gunfire. By late that night, 12 people were dead, 59 families were left homeless and bereft of everything they owned, and no one in authority paid the price.
    Yes, I’m still angry.

  95. 95.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @normal liberal: My brother said in either Time or Newsweek report the author stated it was only the 2nd time a govt in US bombed an area where civilians were living. The first was the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. This may have been one of the 1st times the (white) riot was mentioned in a national publication. It wasn’t being mentioned in Tulsa or OK media or schools.

  96. 96.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Ladyraxterinok: I thought the black parts of Tulsa were bombed back then (Greenwood-Archer-Pine, for you GAP Band aficionados) even though it was the white people rioting and killing blacks.

  98. 98.

    Dev Null

    Slightly off-topic, but as some / most / all (check one) jackals know, the NRA once supported gun control:

    Throughout the late 1960s, the militant black nationalist group [to wit: the Black Panthers] used their understanding of the finer details of California’s gun laws to underscore their political statements about the subjugation of African-Americans. In 1967, 30 members of the Black Panthers protested on the steps of the California statehouse armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols and announced, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves.”

    The display so frightened politicians—including California governor Ronald Reagan—that it helped to pass the Mulford Act, a state bill prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms, along with an addendum prohibiting loaded firearms in the state Capitol. The 1967 bill took California down the path to having some of the strictest gun laws in America and helped jumpstart a surge of national gun control restrictions.

    “The law was part of a wave of laws that were passed in the late 1960s regulating guns, especially to target African-Americans,”

    Seems that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is … a lot of scary black dudes with guns … because only then will the GOP allow gun control legislation to pass.

    Incidentally, my quick online search didn’t turn up news on the perp’s weapon. One report even says “Police aren’t saying”.

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