Three Philadelphia police officers were shot and wounded late Saturday in Wynnefield after a call about a car struck by gunfire turned into a deadly exchange outside 54th and Arlington streets. Police said the suspect, identified by loved ones as 57-year-old Eric Franks, was killed after he confronted officers and pulled a gun.
The officers were hit in the face, hip and leg, and all three were taken to a hospital, where they were stable Sunday morning. One is a sergeant with eight years on the force, another has eight years on the job, and the third has two. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said the officers will survive because they were able to return fire after being caught off guard by an armed man.
Investigators recovered nearly 50 pieces of ballistic evidence from the scene, underscoring how quickly the encounter escalated. Bethel said officers had responded to reports of a vehicle that had been struck by gunfire, then met Franks at the location shortly after 10:30 p.m. and tried to get him to comply with commands. He refused, surveillance video from city street cameras showed him moving toward several officers, and the footage appeared to show him shoving one before being pushed back into the street.
From there, the account becomes the part police still have to keep parsing. Bethel said preliminary information indicates Franks was not connected to the original shooting officers had been investigating, even though they were already on scene because of that earlier report. He was transported to Jefferson Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after 11 p.m., while officers remained in treatment and investigators continued collecting evidence.
Family friends said Sunday they were stunned by what happened and described Franks as a retired firefighter of 19 years and a Marine veteran who owned two businesses nearby. Jesse Keller said the video was hard to reconcile with the man they knew. The unanswered question now is what pushed that confrontation from a police response to a gun battle in the middle of a Philadelphia neighborhood.
