LiberalNation
01-04-2008, 08:01 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080104/ap_on_re_us/philadelphia_police_shootings;_ylt=AumeIdWb0l._3eI 9ef_HaAxvzwcF
PHILADELPHIA - For the second year in a row, city officials are being asked how police officers responding to celebratory New Year's Eve gunfire ended up shooting innocent bystanders.
This year, police chasing an armed reveler shot into a house filled with partygoers, leaving one man in a coma, a second wounded and a 9-year-old boy with a graze wound to the chest.
A year ago, police fatally shot a man in the back of the head as he tried to flee when neighbors started shooting guns into the air.
The latest shootings came as Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson ends a six-year tenure marked by public concern about gun violence and the police response to it.
Johnson has repeatedly been asked to answer questions about the department's use of deadly force, including two months ago when officers killed a distraught teenager wielding a clothes iron. City police fatally shot at least 16 people in 2007 and 20 the previous year.
The party's host, Clinton Rogers, 30, told reporters that bullets started flying through the front door at him, friends and relatives just after midnight. Parents jumped in front of their children and two men who were shot ran upstairs, trailing blood.
The spray of bullets left Abebe Isaac, 33, in a medically induced coma after he was shot in the face. Michael Johnson, 32, remains stable after being shot in the side. Nyger Page, 9, was treated and released after suffering the graze wound.
PHILADELPHIA - For the second year in a row, city officials are being asked how police officers responding to celebratory New Year's Eve gunfire ended up shooting innocent bystanders.
This year, police chasing an armed reveler shot into a house filled with partygoers, leaving one man in a coma, a second wounded and a 9-year-old boy with a graze wound to the chest.
A year ago, police fatally shot a man in the back of the head as he tried to flee when neighbors started shooting guns into the air.
The latest shootings came as Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson ends a six-year tenure marked by public concern about gun violence and the police response to it.
Johnson has repeatedly been asked to answer questions about the department's use of deadly force, including two months ago when officers killed a distraught teenager wielding a clothes iron. City police fatally shot at least 16 people in 2007 and 20 the previous year.
The party's host, Clinton Rogers, 30, told reporters that bullets started flying through the front door at him, friends and relatives just after midnight. Parents jumped in front of their children and two men who were shot ran upstairs, trailing blood.
The spray of bullets left Abebe Isaac, 33, in a medically induced coma after he was shot in the face. Michael Johnson, 32, remains stable after being shot in the side. Nyger Page, 9, was treated and released after suffering the graze wound.