Philadelphia police officer Shane Seiber, a 10-year veteran and father of two, was shot and killed early Saturday after responding to a call about a man with a gun on a porch in West Philadelphia. A second officer was shot 12 times and is fighting for his life.
Eric Lewis, 35, is charged with murder and homicide of a law enforcement officer. Prosecutors say he fired at nine other officers too, CBS News Philadelphia reported.
What happened in the West Philadelphia police shooting?
Officers were called around 1 a.m. to the 100 block of North 52nd Street for a report of a man with a gun on a porch. As they approached, they came under heavy fire, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said. Seiber, 40, was hit three times. The second officer, a 33-year-old father of five, was hit 12 times and was rushed into surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Bethel said he’s “not out of the woods yet.”
SWAT officers closed in on Lewis, who allegedly kept firing. State Rep. Amen Brown, who lives nearby, said Lewis hid in a tree for hours before police pulled him down and arrested him. None of the nine other officers he allegedly shot at were hit.
Who was Officer Shane Seiber?
Seiber leaves a wife, a 7-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter. His wife and family were with him at the hospital when he died. “He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today,” Bethel said. Before joining the department, Seiber served at Dover Air Force Base from 2007 to 2015, the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police said. He had recently finished SWAT training and hoped to join the unit, police sources told CBS. Officers lined the street as his body was carried from the hospital.
What is Eric Lewis charged with?
District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Lewis with homicide of a law enforcement officer, murder, attempted homicide of a law enforcement officer, reckless endangerment and weapons offenses. He’s held without bail, with a preliminary hearing set for Oct. 26. Lewis works for the Philadelphia Water Department, according to the union that represents many city workers, which offered condolences to Seiber’s family.
The BeezLoop Take
A man with a gun on a porch is one of the most routine calls a city cop answers, and it’s why this one is so hard to accept. Seiber walked up to do his job and was met with a hail of gunfire. Another officer, a father of five, took 12 rounds.
Philadelphia has spent years arguing about policing, and those arguments matter. But nobody should lose sight of what happened here: two officers answered a call and were ambushed, and two families, including three small children, will never be the same.
The open question: how did a man with that much firepower end up on that porch, and could anyone have known?
Also on BeezLoop: nine people died in a mass shooting at an Erie home.
Sources: CBS News Philadelphia · The Philadelphia Inquirer · Associated Press via WRAL · CBS Philadelphia (video)
