Spring Break
Police shooting leaves suspect dead
Aditi Dubey
Issue date: 4/20/07 Section: News
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During the struggle, the UPenn police officer's gun discharged, fatally wounding the suspect.
As of April 19, the suspect had not been identified.
"There were no identifying documents on his person," said Karima Zedan, Director of Academic & External Affairs at the Division of Public Safety of University of Pennsylvania.
In a statement released by UPenn's Division of Public Safety, the shooting incident was reported to have occurred at approximately 11 a.m. April 16. The statement says the suspect attempted an auto theft from a UPenn garage near 32nd Street and Convention Avenue.
According to the statement, the garage attendant and supervisor witnessed the attempted auto theft and confronted the suspect. At this point the suspect brandished a weapon and fled towards South Street. He first attempted to carjack two vehicles, before carjacking a driver of a white van, who was traveling near 33rd and Spruce Streets, at gunpoint.
"I went back there and said to the guy, 'This is my truck,' and he said it was his truck," said John McGuire, a parking department maintenance worker told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "He had the truck running with the lights on. I chased him and he went back toward the elevators and ducked behind a car."
The statement further detailed that the garage security immediately called UPenn Police, who were able to identify the suspect in the van, resulting in a high-speed chase westbound on Spruce Street.
"It was a van and it was flying down Spruce Street; it was going fast, 90 mph maybe," Brian Quimby, a UPenn junior from Mount Laurel, Pa. told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Everyone stopped and turned."
According to the statement, the suspect drove onto the sidewalk and struck a pedestrian, a University of Pennsylvania Health System employee, while fleeing and trying to avoid the traffic on the street. The pedestrian is in stable condition at Hospital of University of Pennsylvania.
The suspect lost control of the stolen vehicle between 40th Street and 41st Street and crashed into approximately four parked cars on the street. He then fled the scene through a parking lot to the 200 block of Preston Street, with a Penn Police officer on foot pursuit. Penn Police's vice president of public safety told The Daily Pennsylvanian that police followed him, believing the man was still armed.
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