Beth covered the horrible terror released on Philadelphia Police officers Wednesday night as 36-year-old Maurice Hill, who has a long criminal history of gun convictions, resisting arrest and drug dealing, opened fire on as many police as he could. Somehow, only six police officers were wounded in the hours-long standoff. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. praised his officers and credited their survival to divine intervention.
"It's nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today," Ross Jr. said Wednesday night.
After six officers were injured in a seven-hour gun battle, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said, “It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today.” https://t.co/6o8nVw3lQ0
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 15, 2019
The shootout reportedly began after police were attempting to serve Hill with a warrant related to illegal drugs. He panicked and began shooting at the officers on site. "This was a narcotics warrant that went awry almost immediately, and the officers came under fire," Ross added.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney immediately blamed lack of gun control legislation from state and federal government on the matter.
"So whether it’s our six officers that were shot or it's some 15-, 17-, 20-year-old kid on the streets of Philadelphia who gets shot with guns that shouldn’t be in people’s hands — it's aggravating, it's saddening, and it's just something we need to do something about," Kenney said. " Our officers deserve to be protected, and they don't deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets."
As Beth reported, California Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris also used the shooting, as it was happening, to push her own gun control agenda on CNN.
"When will it stop, right?" Harris asked CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "Part of my focus on what we need to do around smart gun safety laws is we have to have more enforcement around gun dealers. Wolf, 90 percent of the guns that are associated with crime are sold by just five percent of the gun dealers in the United States and so, among many plans that I have, both in the form of executive action and legislation, one of them is to put more resources into the ATF and take licenses away from gun dealers who violate the law."