West Oak Lane scuffle leads to gunfire, arrest
It was the second police-involved shooting in an hour, and the third in three days
Nearly 16 years after a city cop died and another was permanently disabled in West Oak Lane as they wrestled with a drug courier over an officer's gun, a similar scenario unfolded several blocks away late Tuesday - but with less tragic results.
Tuesday's scuffle, in which a drug suspect grabbed an officer's pistol on 20th Street near 73rd Avenue, ended when the weapon being fired, striking suspect Jamaar Morton once in the side. Morton survived.
It was the second police-involved shooting in an hour, and the third in three days.
In Morton's case, two uniformed officers stopped a 1996 Chevy Lumina for a traffic violation at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, said Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman. The officers discovered 20 vials of crack-cocaine in Morton's vehicle, but Morton didn't surrender peacefully when the officers moved to arrest him, Vanore said.
Instead, a struggle between the three men turned into a fight for survival when Morton allegedly reached for one officer's gun, Vanore said. The gun discharged, although investigators haven't determined who fired the shot, Vanore said.
Morton, 23, of Upper Dublin, Montgomery County, remained in critical condition at Albert Einstein Medical Center yesterday. He was charged with aggravated assault and drug offenses.
Vanore said that the incident was eerily similar to the slaying of Officer Robert Hayes, which occurred just a half-mile away in June 1993.
Then, Hayes and his partner, Officer John Marynowitz, pulled over a car for defective taillights at Limekiln Pike and Andrews Avenue. But passenger Borgela Philisten, then 19, didn't cooperate with the veteran cops; instead, he wrestled Marynowitz's service revolver away from him and repeatedly blasted both officers. Hayes was killed, and Marynowitz was left permanently disabled.
Just a half-hour before the incident involving Morton, highway patrol officers responded to a report of gunshots on Callowhill Street near 58th, in West Philadelphia, Vanore said.
The officers saw fired cartridge casings on the ground and spotted a car matching the description of the suspects' vehicle parked nearby at Felton Street and Girard Avenue, Vanore said.
When the officers approached, the three men inside took off on foot, with the cops in hot pursuit. One suspect who fled west on Girard turned and repeatedly pointed a gun at his pursuer; the officer fired several rounds, hitting the suspect in the torso and arm, Vanore said. Investigators recovered a 9 mm gun on the scene.
Marcus Henderson, 35, of 58th near Market, was in stable condition yesterday at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. He is charged with aggravated assault and related offenses.
The other two suspects who fled were apprehended.
Investigators aren't sure if the three suspects were involved in a 4 p.m. shooting a block away, in which a 24-year-old man was shot in the arm.
Tuesday's shootings came two days after police, responding to a domestic disturbance, killed a 40-year-old man outside his Northeast Philadelphia home Sunday.
Police said that Lawrence Kelly was naked, agitated and intoxicated when cops arrived at his home on Lawndale Street near Comly. During a struggle, Kelly allegedly grabbed an officer's baton and then a knife from his house, police said. An officer shot him once fatally in the chest.
Kelly was the third person killed among six police-involved shootings so far this year, Vanore said. *
Staff writer David Gambacortacontributed to this report.