Police: Off-duty officer fatally shoots driver after pedestrian hit in South Philly

SOUTH PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - Police say a man tried to mow down people on the sidewalk in South Philadelphia early Monday morning. According to police, an off-duty officer fatally shot the man.

"It was sort of like pop, pop, pop, pop--maybe like 10 shots that went off." That's how many shots witnesses heard at Broad and Bigler in South Philadelphia Monday morning and Philly police say they came from the gun of an off-duty detective who had just confronted a man driving a Honda accused of running people down.

The gunfire killed the suspect, but it's the number of shots from a department issued gun that gives Police Commissioner Richard Ross pause.

"There are some concerns because of the way the shots were fired and the positioning and things like that. But at this time, I'm just being very candid about the fact that we do have some concerns about the discharge," he said.

Investigators say it all went down around 7:30 a.m. Monday morning when the driver of the Honda was reported to be driving erratically. Cops say he struck one person--an intended target who suffered minor injuries.

A Good Samaritan blocked the suspect when the off-duty officer got involved in a struggle that grew violent as the man allegedly tried to disarm the cop.

"They're spinning each other round and round and at some point in time there are multiple discharges," Commissioner Ross said.

The suspect was killed. Police say he was a 31-year-old from Virginia though the car he was driving had Maryland plates. Police don't know why he was in Philadelphia. We're told the suspect was not armed.