Man slain in shootout with narcs

Two months ago, a fugitive who vowed he would never return to prison shot a Philadelphia police officer to death in a doomed quest to dodge justice.

Late Thursday, cops say another fugitive started down cop-killer Daniel Giddings' path when he began firing at police officers working a drug investigation in Strawberry Mansion.

But Lamont Norman was outnumbe

red.

The three undercover officers Norman ambushed just before midnight soon were joined by several uniformed colleagues and a SWAT team. Three officers returned Norman's fire in a roving shootout that left Norman dead, violence-weary residents upset and police officials angry, again, at a criminal-justice system that allows career criminals to roam free.

"We were very, very lucky today we did not have another police officer killed," said Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman.

Norman, 32, lived on 27th Street, just a block from where the plain-clothes officers were investigating a suspect on Taney Street near Montgomery Avenue, Vanore said.

Detectives don't know why Norman, who had nothing to do with the investigation, opened fire on the officers, or even if he initially knew they were officers.

But they quickly identified themselves as police, ordered Norman to drop his weapon and returned fire, Vanore said. Norman took off up Taney Street, where another brief shootout erupted. He then took cover in an alley between Etting and 27th streets, which police hastily cordoned off.

But instead of surrendering, the gunman began firing at officers again, Vanore said. A SWAT officer returned fire, and Norman was hit once in the torso. He was declared dead on the scene.

On Taney Street yesterday, neighbors clustered to talk about the violence none of them had seen, since police declared the entire street a crime scene and demanded they remain in their homes.

Norman's mother pulled up in a white van, howling: "Where's my son? Where's my son?" Neighbors and her relatives rushed to comfort her.

"He didn't have no gun. I don't allow no guns around me," said the woman, who refused to give her name or give more details about Norman. "My son had much respect for the cops. He's never shot at nobody."

But police said that Norman was a repeat offender whose respect for the law was so negligible that he'd been on the lam since August, when he skipped out of the halfway house he was sent to after being released from state prison in April, Vanore said. He'd been in state prison since April 2002, when he was sentenced to five to 10 years for a 2000 armed robbery and burglary.

He had 17 prior arrests for charges that included aggravated assault and drug and gun offenses, Vanore said.

And investigators found a five-shot revolver they said that Norman had fired on the scene, Vanore said. He declined to say how many shots had been exchanged, saying that remained under investigation.

Norman was the 10th person shot dead by police this year, said Chief Inspector Anthony DiLacqua, who heads the Internal Affairs Bureau. That's down from previous years; police shot 15 civilians to death last year and 22 in 2006. *