Attack on US cop leaves two dead, including gunman

Washington (AFP) – A shooting rampage that began with an apparently unprovoked attack on a Philadelphia policewoman left two people dead and five injured, police said Saturday. The suspected gunman was among the dead.

The shootings came in a year marked by attacks on police in racially charged incidents that followed complaints of police abuse.

The shooter was identified as Nicholas Glenn, a 25-year-old local man with a long criminal record. His motives were not entirely clear, but authorities said the shooter left a rambling note — in an envelope marked “Doomed” — expressing hatred for police.

“I don’t know what his ideology is, or thinking,” Police Commissioner Richard Ross told reporters. “It’s just a hatred of police officers.”

The race of Glenn and of the police officers involved was not immediately clear, but the neighborhood is predominantly black.

“Obviously, he was hellbent on hurting a lot of people,” Ross said. “We still aren’t absolutely clear as to why.”

He said there was no indication that the shooter had been radicalized — in possible contrast to a man in the same neighborhood who opened fire on a police officer early tis year and said he had done so “in the name of Islam.” 

Police said that Glenn approached a marked police car late Friday and, without speaking, fired 18 shots from close range at Sergeant Sylvia Young, 46, a 19-year veteran of the Philadelphia force.

She was struck repeatedly but may have been saved by her bulletproof vest; at least two bullets struck her service weapon, disabling it, Ross said. 

The assailant then fled on foot as police gave chase. He fired five times into a bar, striking a security guard in the leg, then grabbed a woman to use as a human shield. She too was shot in the leg.

The shooter then fired 14 times into a white car, striking its occupants, a man and a woman. The 25-year-old woman, struck seven times, later died; the man was in critical condition but was expected to survive, Ross said.

As police closed in on the assailant in an alley, a University of Pennsylvania officer who joined the chase was shot in the legs, but the suspect was killed.

The university officer, Eddie Miller, 56,  was hospitalized in stable condition. Officer Young was also listed in stable condition. Both were alert on Saturday, Ross said.