Post by Critique on Jan 8, 2007 4:14:42 GMT -5
Jan. 06, 2007
Associated Press PHILADELPHIA - A 20-year-old man fatally shot by city police responding to gunfire early on New Year's Day was not armed, authorities said. Inspector William Colarulo said investigators determined an officer fired twice when he saw Bryan Jones reaching for his waistband shortly after midnight Jan. 1. No weapon was found, said Colarulo, commander of police Internal Affairs, which is investigating the shooting. Police have said gunmen on the porch of a home in the city's Overbrook section fired on officers responding to a report of gunfire. The officers returned fire, putting about 10 bullet holes in the porch roof facades and walls of two homes, police said. Police said nine guns were eventually recovered from a porch roof and a house near the scene. A 19-year-old man and four juveniles were arrested. According to Jones' family, he and his 13-year-old nephew were running away when an officer shouted at him to stop and fired. Bryan Jones and the teen ran from one of the houses that police had fired upon and were running down an alley when he was shot, the family said. "They told us he's been shot three times in the head," said Chris Jones, the victim's brother. "He did not have a gun, he did not have anything." Police department regulations bar officers from firing at a "fleeing individual who presents no threat of imminent death or serious physical injury to themselves or another person present." A police report stated that the unidentified officer who shot Jones saw a man with a gun in the alley, but that he got away just before the officer saw Jones, Colarulo said. Five officers who fired their weapons have been placed on administrative duty while the internal affairs investigation continues. Barry Ginsburg, a lawyer retained by Jones' family, said he was considering filing a civil-rights lawsuit, but was awaiting Jones' medical records and the results of an autopsy report. Last year, city police killed 20 civilians, the most in more than 25 years. The city also recorded 406 homicides in 2006, the highest total since 1997.
www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/16399842.htm
Associated Press PHILADELPHIA - A 20-year-old man fatally shot by city police responding to gunfire early on New Year's Day was not armed, authorities said. Inspector William Colarulo said investigators determined an officer fired twice when he saw Bryan Jones reaching for his waistband shortly after midnight Jan. 1. No weapon was found, said Colarulo, commander of police Internal Affairs, which is investigating the shooting. Police have said gunmen on the porch of a home in the city's Overbrook section fired on officers responding to a report of gunfire. The officers returned fire, putting about 10 bullet holes in the porch roof facades and walls of two homes, police said. Police said nine guns were eventually recovered from a porch roof and a house near the scene. A 19-year-old man and four juveniles were arrested. According to Jones' family, he and his 13-year-old nephew were running away when an officer shouted at him to stop and fired. Bryan Jones and the teen ran from one of the houses that police had fired upon and were running down an alley when he was shot, the family said. "They told us he's been shot three times in the head," said Chris Jones, the victim's brother. "He did not have a gun, he did not have anything." Police department regulations bar officers from firing at a "fleeing individual who presents no threat of imminent death or serious physical injury to themselves or another person present." A police report stated that the unidentified officer who shot Jones saw a man with a gun in the alley, but that he got away just before the officer saw Jones, Colarulo said. Five officers who fired their weapons have been placed on administrative duty while the internal affairs investigation continues. Barry Ginsburg, a lawyer retained by Jones' family, said he was considering filing a civil-rights lawsuit, but was awaiting Jones' medical records and the results of an autopsy report. Last year, city police killed 20 civilians, the most in more than 25 years. The city also recorded 406 homicides in 2006, the highest total since 1997.
www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/16399842.htm