While police remain mum on details of the murder, witnesses claim gunman fired shots at man who shouted “Police!” while chasing gunman from hospital.
By A.A. O?Reilly
Bulletin Staff Writer
Posted Online 09/09 at 11:30 a.m.
Philadelphia-A critically burned man who had just been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Temple University Hospital was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant this morning, according to a source inside the hospital who asked to remain anonymous.
Witnesses on the sidewalk outside the hospital said that about 10:50 a.m. the gunman ran out of the hospital from an exit door at street level. He then fled eastward down Tioga Street. When the exit door opened again, witnesses said, the gunman fired back at it, narrowly missing a man who identified himself by shouting “Police! Stop!”
“It was absolute chaos,” said Sylvia Morris, who was returning to her job at the hospital. “Everyone on the sidewalk was running for their lives.”
As the gunman ran toward Germantown Avenue, witnesses said, he reloaded his pistol. The man who identified himself as police then pursued him.
A short time later, witnesses said that they heard at least four more gunshots in the direction that the two had run, but that they could not see them at that point.
The gunman was described as being a Hispanic male of tiny stature, no older than a teenager. He wore royal blue hospital scrubs and carried in his right hand a black semiautomatic pistol. He remains at large.
A spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that a sergeant from the department had been the one who had chased the shooter. But the spokesman would neither identify the sergeant nor give any details on what happened in the hospital prior to the street chase.
Check back for updates as they become available.