Source: Teen gunman tried to rob PHA officer

The would-be robber who was killed after pulling a gun on an off-duty Philadelphia Housing Authority police officer on Sunday was a 16-year-old boy who lived nearby, sources told the Daily News.

And, coincidentally, it wasn't the first time that officer had been targeted by a teenage gunman.

Shane Whitehead allegedly approached the officer, identified by police sources as Craig Kelley, just before 7 p.m. as he was walking on School House Lane near Morris Street in Germantown.

Whitehead — accompanied by an unidentified man — walked up to Kelley, 57, and pulled out a handgun, holding it against the officer's rib cage. He thought, sources said, that Kelley was an "easy mark."

The teen announced a robbery, not realizing the victim he had chosen was carrying a gun of his own, which he pulled out and fired.

Whitehead, of Ashmead Street near Rubicam in East Germantown, was struck several times in the torso, police said. His accomplice, who hadn't been arrested as of Tuesday night, fled amid the chaos.

Medics took Whitehead to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead just before 8 p.m. He had three prior arrests on his criminal record, the source said, all for summary offenses. His earliest came when he was 9-years-old.

Investigators later recovered the teen's gun from the scene of the shooting.

Kelley was not injured. The incident came more than five years after Kelley was wounded during an attack at the now-demolished Queen Lane Apartments, a PHA facility that stood on Queen Lane near Pulaski Avenue in Germantown.

Zahir Boddy-Johnson, then-17, tried to force his way into the security booth where Kelley was stationed on Feb. 17, 2008.

When Kelley opened the door, Boddy-Johnson pointed an SKS assault rifle at him and fired twice, striking him in the left hip. The teenage guman fled, but was arrested a few blocks away.

Boddy-Johnson was convicted the following year and sentenced to 23 1/2 to 47 years in state prison on charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault and a gun violation. He's currently incarcerated at the state correctional institution in Greene County, according to state records.