Murder suspect shot dead, officer wounded, during warrant delivery

YEAH, DONALD POWERS said, he can still remember everything from that wretched morning last fall when he watched a bullet run into his pregnant neighbor's face.

Megan Doto was eight months along in her pregnancy. She had parked herself in a lawn chair in front of the stucco-covered walls of another neighbor's house in Frankford when the stray bullet found her.

The 25-year-old died a few hours after she was wounded on Sept. 14. Doctors delivered her baby, but the infant girl survived for only 12 hours.

A few days after the heartbreaking tragedy unfolded, Philadelphia police identified her killer as Devon Guisherd, 27, a local man who allegedly had fired the shots at a car as part of a possible neighborhood drug battle.

Guisherd eluded investigators until yesterday morning. SWAT cops tracked him to the Northbrook Apartments in the Far Northeast, but an attempted arrest turned into a shoot-out that left Guisherd dead and a veteran cop wounded.

Powers stood yesterday next to the section of pavement where Doto was gunned down as he absorbed the news about Guisherd's death.

"The guy only lived around the corner from here," he said, referring to Guisherd's family, who live nearby. "There's a lot of relief now, because everyday you have to wonder" if more violence would follow, Powers said.

Guisherd's relatives insisted that he had nothing to do with Doto's slaying.

"They don't know who killed that girl, but they killed my nephew," said his uncle, Jimmy Stowe. "They shot him down like a f-----g dog. I hope y'all p-----s happy."

The dramatic encounter between Guisherd and police unfolded just as most Philadelphians were waking up for the day. SWAT officers and homicide detectives arrived at the apartment building where Guisherd was staying, just off Woodhaven Road, at 6:10 a.m.

Armed with a warrant, officers yesterday "breached" Guisherd's second-floor apartment on Riverside Drive near Waterview Lane to arrest him, Commissioner Charles Ramsey said.

"He grabbed an object - the officer was not sure exactly what it was he grabbed - and he took off running" toward the bedroom, Ramsey said.

"The officer was behind him. He [Guisherd] spun and fired a round, striking the officer in the stomach with a .40-caliber semiautomatic weapon. The officer returned fire, striking the suspect."

Guisherd, who was hit in the chest, died at 6:42 a.m. at Aria Health's Torresdale hospital.

Ramsey credited the officer's body armor with stopping the bullet. It was the second time the officer, a 17-year police veteran and married father of two, had been shot while on duty, Ramsey added.

"The officer does have a pretty nasty bruise," Ramsey told reporters outside Aria, where both the SWAT officer and Guisherd were taken after their gunbattle. The officer was released from the hospital about three hours after the ordeal.

SWAT officers wear a longer bulletproof vest than regular street officers, and the extra inches saved his life, Ramsey said. "Had it been a regular patrol officer, he might not have been as lucky," Ramsey added.

John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5, agreed: "These guys are trained to do this, and their training and experience paid off. They were very lucky this morning, very lucky."

Guisherd's father, David Brown, said police simply had the wrong man.

Besides the ongoing drug war, investigators previously said Guisherd had been looking to avenge the death of his brother, who was murdered about a month before Doto. The shots he allegedly fired last September were supposed to have been aimed at a car that was making its way through the neighborhood.

"If he did what [they say] he did, he should've paid his price like everybody else," Brown said.

But Brown said his son was indoors with his own children when Doto was shot. "You can't convince me [otherwise] when the man was in the house with his daughter and son, sitting on the couch, folding clothes."

Brown was interrupted by Guisherd's sister, who chased reporters from her house, yelling "Get from my door! Get the f--- from my door!"

Powers said Doto's slaying is never far from his mind. He was on his way to a local Walgreens when he saw her cut down by a bullet.

"I was kind of in shock," he said. "I mean, that's something I've never seen before."

Another neighbor, Judy Luckangelo, said the neighborhood is still haunted by the sadness of Doto's death.

"She was great. We used to have coffee and eat meals together," Luckangelo said. "We were all waiting for her to have that baby. She was getting bottles and car seats together."

Meanwhile, Northbrook Apartments residents were left shaken by the violence that erupted in their complex.

Katherine Krause, 63, said she was outside drinking her morning coffee, but didn't hear the exchange of gunfire.

"I'm out there every morning, with my personal aquarium, you know, the creek there," she said, gesturing to Byberry Creek. "I saw the helicopters overhead but I just thought they were traffic helicopters" reporting on the morning's rush hour on nearby Interstate 95 and Woodhaven Road.

When she realized the choppers weren't there to monitor traffic, she ran to see what was happening and saw officers ushering "a young, baby-faced officer," so shaken up by the violence that he appeared to be crying, into the rear of the cruiser.

"He was so upset," Krause said. "It was just so crazy. I feel so bad for them."

Many residents were shocked that a violent fugitive wanted for murder had been hiding in their neighborhood. The gated complex, with well-tended, three-story, red-brick buildings sprawling over several roads near the Bucks County border, seemed an unusual place for such bloodshed.

But resident Robin Rackley was unsurprised. Marveling at the morning's mayhem with her neighbors as crime-scene officers worked nearby, Rackley ticked off several tragedies - including two fatal home invasions - that have happened there.

"I've lived here 25 years, and I've seen it all," said Rackley, 53. "I no longer feel safe here. We've been trying to move, but everything is so expensive."

Krause responded, with sarcasm: "You're making me sleep real well tonight."

Neighbor Kelly Young, 29, agreed: "I'm getting a double, triple lock."

Several residents said Guisherd lived in the apartment with a woman. "They should put her in custody for aiding a fugitive," Rackley said.

If investigators determine Guisherd's roommate knew he was a fugitive, she could be criminally charged, said Officer Christine O'Brien, a police spokeswoman.