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Delco D.A.: Police shooting of armed suspect justified

Police appeared to be justified when they shot and killed a Chester man in a hail of gunfire after a chase early Monday because the man had pointed a loaded gun at them, the Delaware County district attorney said.

The SUV the suspect was driving was riddled with bullets after the deadly confrontation.
The SUV the suspect was driving was riddled with bullets after the deadly confrontation.Read more6ABC

Police appeared to be justified when they shot and killed a Chester man in a hail of gunfire after a chase early Monday because the man had pointed a loaded gun at them, the Delaware County district attorney said.

Six officers fired from 50 to 100 shots at Shalamar Longer as he sat in his Chevrolet SUV and brandished the weapon, District Attorney Jack Whelan said Wednesday.

Longer didn't fire a shot.

But the suspect, 33, was on parole and was illegally armed when police tried to pull him over around 2 a.m. in Upland, Whelan said. In the ensuing chase, which ended with the SUV crashing outside a house in Chester, Longer allegedly told his passenger he would not return to prison.

"That speaks volumes, that he's not going back to jail," Whelan said. "The reasonable interpretation is that 'I'm going to do whatever I can not to go back to jail, including killing police officers.' "

He spoke at a news conference in Media called to release the preliminary results of the investigation. Whelan didn't name the officers involved, except to say four were from Chester.

None was injured, but the prosecutor said he expected at least some would remain on administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigation.

On parole for a 2011 robbery in Philadelphia, Longer was driving in the SUV with his cousin around 2 a.m. when an Upland officer noticed the light above Longer's license plate was burned out, Whelan said.

The officer attempted to pull the vehicle over. Instead, Longer sped off, leading police up I-95 into Chester. The chase drew officers from Chester Township and City. Ultimately, the vehicle crashed into a car and careened onto a lawn on the 1200 block of Keystone Road.

As his cousin fled, Longer remained in the SUV and pulled out "a very old revolver," Whelan said. That's when officers opened fire.

"We are not looking at whether or not they shot once, twice, or 10 times at that particular individual," Whelan said. "What we are looking at is, did this [officer] have the right to fire that weapon from the beginning?"

Longer's cousin Asmar Longer, 23, was struck and wounded in an ankle as he fled, then passed out, according to Whelan. He cooperated with investigators and faces no charges.

Detectives are still compiling evidence, Whelan said, but he said he did not expect the probe results to change.

Despite run-ins with the law throughout his 20s, Shalamar Longer was a "good-hearted person" who "cared about his family very deeply," according to La'Tisha Spratley, a former Chester resident who said she knew him for 18 years.

She was still questioning whether so much force was necessary. "No matter what he was doing that night, there was no justification for them to have killed him that way . . . with that many shots," Spratley said.

cmccabe@philly.com

610-313-8113 @mccabe_caitlin