Philly cops fatally shoot carjacker after high-speed pursuit, police say
The carjacker shot at police officers who were chasing him during a high-speed pursuit Monday night, police said.
Philadelphia police officers shot and killed a man who led police on a high-speed chase through the city after shooting a man, stealing his car, and firing at the officers who were pursuing after him, police said.
Police responded to a shooting at a Public Storage self-storage facility at the 500 block of East Hunting Park, in North Philadelphia, at 7:11 p.m. Monday, police said. Officers arrived to find a 32-year-old man, whom police did not identify, with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The man, police said, was shot during a carjacking.
Investigators said Jerome Cooper, 51, had approached the man at the storage facility and stole his Toyota Camry at gunpoint, then exchanged gunfire with a third man, a 29-year-old whom police did not identify, before fleeing the scene in the stolen Toyota Camry, still firing his gun, said police.
The 32-year-old was taken to Temple University Hospital and was listed in stable condition, police said.
The carjacker then led police on a chase through the city, at one point shooting at police officers from the window of the stolen car in the area of the 700 block of East Cheltenham Avenue, police said.
Cooper eventually crashed the car in a grassy median at the 4600 block of Roosevelt Boulevard and got out of the car, raising his gun toward the officers, police said.
Seven police officers opened fire on him, striking him multiple times, police said.
Cooper was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead just after 9 p.m., police said.
One of the officers who shot Cooper is from the Philadelphia Police Department’s 15th District in Northeast Philadelphia, another is from the 25th District, in North Philadelphia, and five are highway patrol officers, police said. The officers range in age from 29 years old to 55 years old, police said.
Police continue to investigate the shooting. The actions of the man who fired back at Cooper during the carjacking are being investigated by police and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, police said.
“We still have a lot to unpack,” Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Monday night.
As is customary, all seven police officers have been placed on administrative duty pending the investigations being completed.