Police stage near the site of the standoff.
At least six police officers were shot and two more people were injured after a drug raid turned into a gunfight and standoff. Fox News. Two narcotics officers were serving a search warrant when a suspect ambushed them. The two officers ran and barricaded themselves in rooms along with the four suspects in the drug raid. SWAT officers tried to raid the building but were driven back by gunfire. The suspect remains barricaded as of this writing and is continuing to fire at police officers. None of the police officers were injured severely, despite one of the cops being hit by a grazing round. The other two officers were injured in an accident and not gunfire. The two narcotics officers stuck in the building with the shooter have been rescued. The suspect also reportedly live streamed the incident on Facebook, but no video has surfaced so far. Four women were rescued from the building the attacker barricaded himself in.
My Comment:
It looks like this was a drug raid that went very badly for the police to say the least. One of the suspects in that raid was armed to the teeth and decided shooting it out with the cops was a better plan than surrendering.
Thankfully, the attacker seems to be a pretty terrible shot. Six people shot and none of them were severely injured. That may have been due to body armor or due to poor marksmanship but either way it was very fortunate as this could have gone a lot worse for the police.
It's unclear why the suspect decided to open fire on the police. Doing so is a terrible idea as his options now are to either die in a gunfight or spend the rest of his life in prison. It's possible he was drunk or high and wasn't thinking clearly. It's also possible he wasn't sure the officers were cops if they were in plainclothes. Finally, it could have been someone who just hated police and would rather die than go to prison.
There have been reports that the incident was livestreamed on Facebook, but I haven't seen any evidence that it is true. Supposedly reporters heard that on the police scanners, but usually when something like this happens the video spreads very quickly. It's possible that the suspect only streamed to his friends but still, I'm skeptical.
I'm not sure how I'd rate the police response in this case. It's pretty clear that they walked into an ambush, which isn't great. And the SWAT team failed to eliminate the subject. It seems like they may have screwed up pretty badly, but without more information it's unclear. I do know that Philadelphia has an overworked and understaffed police force so that might explain why they had so many problems here.
Shootouts like this are pretty rare, even in a crime ridden city like Philadelphia. Most people when confronted by the police surrender and if they don't they usually don't try to fight it out like this. Even armed people usually don't try to fight cops as doing so usually ends in death, not escape.
This incident is already being politicized by gun-controllers but I doubt it will last long. For one thing, the victims in this case are police officers. The left generally don't care if cops get shot and some even love it. I've seen some horrible anti-cop things posted about this shooting on Twitter already so I doubt the media will keep reporting on it.
Secondly, the suspect is likely black. There are pictures and videos of some of the other people detained in the drug raid and they were black so it's likely that the attacker is as well. If true, I sincerely suspect that the case will drop from the news immediately as there is no "racist white male" narrative to advance.
Finally, note that this situation is ongoing. If there are any major developments I will have another post up in the morning. But my guess is that the situation will either be resolved by the suspect surrendering (unlikely) or being shot by the cops when they find an opening or he runs out of ammo. I don't care if the suspect dies or not but I do sincerely hope that nobody else gets hurt.
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