Philadelphia officer dies after shooting; second officer wounded

A Philadelphia police officer died Saturday after he and another officer came under gunfire while responding to a report of an armed man in West Philadelphia, authorities said. The second officer survived surgery, but Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel cautioned that he was “not out of the woods yet.”

The officer who died was Shane Seiber, 40, a 10-year veteran of the force and father of two. His wife and other relatives were with him at the hospital, Bethel said. “He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today,” the commissioner said at a mid-morning news conference.

Police received a call around 1 a.m. about a man with a gun on the porch of a home on the 100 block of North 52nd Street. Officers approached the home and came under heavy gunfire, Bethel said. Both were taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where they underwent surgery.

Bethel said Seiber was shot three times. The other officer, a 33-year-old father of five, was shot 12 times, CBS News Philadelphia reported. The Guardian reported that Bethel described the surviving officer as being in stable condition. At the mid-morning news conference, Bethel said the officer remained at risk.

More officers, including a SWAT team, responded after the initial shooting, and the suspect fired at them multiple times, according to CBS News Philadelphia. Police arrested him after pulling him from a tree, the outlet reported. Pennsylvania state Rep. Amen Brown, who said he witnessed the arrest, said the man had hidden in the tree for hours. Brown said the suspect lived in the neighborhood, had “an extensive criminal record” and allegedly said during his arrest that he wished he had killed more officers.

Police recovered two handguns and a shotgun at the scene, Bethel said, according to CBS News Philadelphia. One of the handguns had been taken from a wounded officer. The Guardian, citing a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer based on law enforcement sources, identified the suspect as Eric Lewis, 35, and said the Inquirer reported that he worked for the city’s water department.

Seiber had recently completed SWAT training and hoped to transfer to the unit, police sources told CBS News Philadelphia. The Guardian reported that his children are a 7-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. Citing the Officer Down Memorial Page, it said Seiber was at least the 376th Philadelphia officer to die in the line of duty since 1851 and the 129th to die from gunfire.

Mayor Cherelle Parker called for prayers for the officers and urged Pennsylvania lawmakers to consider measures addressing mental health and substance abuse, including an expansion of involuntary commitment laws. Gov. Josh Shapiro ordered U.S. and state flags flown at half-staff in Seiber’s honor. “They put their lives on the line every day, running towards danger to keep their fellow Pennsylvanians safe,” Shapiro said of law enforcement officers.