Police kill knife-wielding homeless man near City Hall

Two police officers shot and killed a homeless man who lunged at them with a utility knife near City Hall this morning, authorities said.

The incident began when a foot patrol officer responded to a disorderly person call about 8:25 a.m. in a below-ground concourse leading to the subway on the east side of the Municipal Building, said Deputy Commissioner Kevin Bethel.

Bethel said the man, who was in his 60s, was known to the officer as one of the homeless who frequent the area.

After responding to the call, the foot patrol officer was joined by bike officer. A security guard inside the municipal building said she saw the officers chase the man through the tunnel leading to the concourse.

Once he was outside near the bench where he often slept, the man pulled out a utility knife and lunged at the officers, the deputy commissioner said. The officers then fired, hitting the man in the torso.

The man was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:02 a.m.

Police have not identified him, but other homeless men in the area said he was known as Charlie and homeless advocates believe he is a veteran with a history of mental illness.

On any other weekday, the area would have been busy at that hour with people heading to work or to the nearby criminal and municipal courts, which were closed for the 4th of July holiday.

Both the Homicide Unit and Internal Affairs are investigating the shooting and a number of witnesses were taken headquarters for questioning, police said.

Rob Markegene, 20, who works at the Convention Center, was taking a coffee break with his father at a McDonald's that overlooks the concourse when they heard four loud bangs.

"First we thought it was at the work site, but then we said, 'Wait those are gunshots.' "

Paul Tolis, 57, who has operated a coffee cart at the top of the concourse for 17 years, and a worker who gave his name only as John, said they saw the homeless man followed by two officers coming out of the subway entrance at the end of the concourse.

The man then walked over to a bench that he had been using as a bed, they said.

Tolis said he heard the man yelling and the officers yelling back, but their words were indistinguishable.

There was a shot and the man slumped on the bench, followed by three more shots when he tried to get up, the two men said.

They said the officers were only about 5 feet from the man, but their view was obscured somewhat by a set of stairs leading to the lower concourse.

Tolis said the foot patrol officer was a familiar figure in the area who regularly stopped at the cart for coffee and cookies. Both officers have been on the force for over 20 years, police spokesman Sgt. Ray Evers said.

The homeless man had been in the area on a daily basis in recent months, Tolis said. The bench was padded with cardboard and police said they collected some of his belongings from the scene, along with the knife.

"He was a pain in the butt sometimes," Tolis said. He recalled a recent incident in which the man had run over to pick up and eat a cookie off the ground after a child had dropped it.

The underground corridors around City Hall and Suburban Station draw daily nighttime crowds of homeless men and women.

Transit police who patrol SEPTA property typically move people out of the public spaces before dawn.

The last time the city conducted a spot-count of the Center City homeless population on May 20, there were 189 people sleeping in underground public spaces.

The city's behavioral health department estimates that of the homeless street population, about 85 percent of people suffer from mental illness, addictions or a combination of both.

After the shooting, Phozzie Shama, 17, of Kensington, slowed and squinted as she walked toward the exit into the concourse, a route she takes daily on her way to school. Today, the door was blocked off with police tape as investigators combed the area.

"A lot of people down here, if they're not on drugs, they're on medication," she said.

The subway entrance reopened after firefighters hosed down blood from the wall and bench, and people came and went apparently unaware of what had transpired two hours earlier.