Man charged after Philadelphia police officer shot trying to break up fight outside Overbrook High School
A 30-year-old man has been charged with shooting a Philadelphia police officer trying to break up a fight outside Overbrook High School on Wednesday afternoon, according to the city's police commissioner.
Dachan Seay was charged with aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, illegal gun possession, reckless endangerment and related offenses, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel announced Thursday.
The shooting happened outside Overbrook High School around 2:45 p.m. Wednesday after police responded to reports of several fights breaking out. Police said that at some point, Seay was called into the area by someone or some people involved in the fights.
According to police, Seay came to the scene armed with a Ruger-57. He's accused of firing the gun with a rifle round into the ground. Police said the cartridge ricocheted and struck a 26-year-old police officer under his bulletproof vest.
The officer was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and into surgery, police said. Bethel said Thursday the officer is out of surgery but suffered a significant injury. Bethel said the officer is alert and talking, and "on the road to recovery."
The officer has not been identified, but police said he had only been on the job for under a year.
Bethel said Thursday that Seay has some type of connection to the people involved in the fights, but it's unclear how. Bethel said it could be familial.
Bethel said Seay has a previous criminal record, including aggravated assault and retail theft.
The police commissioner echoed his message from Wednesday, saying adults should heed this incident as a warning.
"You should not be engaged in this activity," Bethel said on Thursday. "You should not be coming up to school and aggravating. It is your job to de-escalate these situations. It's your job to come up to the school and work with those schools when those fights are occurring, not putting that all on policing and putting that on the school. It is parents' duty to do that. If everybody did their job, then our schools would not have these issues, nor would we have these issues with young people in the community."
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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