Why did a firearms instructor who promoted gun safety shoot three Philly cops? Those who knew him struggle for answers.

In videos posted online, firearms instructor Eric Franks taught others how to handle guns safely.

“If you don’t have a leg strap on … your firearm’s going to be flapping out,” the 57-year-old Wynnefield man said in an Instagram video demonstrating how to properly secure a “battle belt,” a tool for holstering guns and equipment.

So some people who knew him found it hard to fathom that Franks, a retired Philadelphia firefighter, father, and business owner, walked up to a group of police officers on a West Philadelphia street and got into a confrontation that ended in gunfire.

On Saturday night, police said, Franks shot and wounded three officers, and they returned fire, killing him.

“The biggest thing he taught was restraint, situational awareness,” said Randy Robinson, a friend and fellow member of That Gun Talk, a firearms training organization Franks helped found during the pandemic.

Robinson said Franks taught students: “The last thing you want to have to do is pull your firearm.”

Like others grappling with conflicting emotions about Franks’ role in the shooting, Robinson is struggling to understand why his friend of seven years fired the shots that cost him his life.

Police were called to the block around 10:30 p.m. that night for a report of a shooting on 54th Street, not far from Mingle, a popular event space Franks owned that had hosted a teenager’s birthday party that evening.

Alerted by his son to the nearby gunfire, Franks made his way to Mingle, near where he began to argue outside with several police officers who told him they were trying to establish a crime scene, according to surveillance footage and police accounts.

As officers investigated a vehicle that had been struck by bullets, Franks approached and began complaining about crime and policing in the area, said a source familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

He appeared frustrated, the source said, that officers had not yet cordoned off the area around the vehicle with crime scene tape, and became increasingly agitated as officers repeatedly asked him to step back so they could do their jobs.

Video obtained by The Inquirer appears to show Franks yelling at officers, then pushing one, before stepping back and pulling a gun from his waistband.

Franks then fired multiple shots at the officers, who took cover behind nearby vehicles, according to the video and police accounts, and four officers returned fire. Three officers — including a sergeant — were struck by gunfire. Franks was shot in the chest and the leg and later died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Police have not released the names of the injured officers or identified those who discharged their weapons that night. One officer was shot in the face, one in the hip, and another in the leg, officials said. A 43-year-old officer was released from the hospital on Tuesday, police said, following the release of a 39-year-old sergeant on Monday.

The shooting remains under investigation by the police department’s officer-involved shooting unit and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

DA Larry Krasner said investigators from his office had visited the scene, spoken to witnesses and Franks’ family, and reviewed video footage and other evidence. He said his office — like Franks’ family and members of the community — has questions about what happened that night.

James Funt, an attorney for Franks’ wife, Michelle, and his two children, said he, too, is looking for more information on what transpired in the moments before the gunfire.

“That’s all the family is looking for — a full, fair, and thorough investigation,” Funt said.

Meanwhile, those who knew Franks say the shooting ran counter to the behavior of the man they knew — an advocate for responsible gun ownership and reducing crime in the neighborhood.

Franks was a founding member of That Gun Talk, a local chapter of the National African American Gun Association formed in 2020 to promote self-defense training among Black gun owners, according to Robinson.

He said he was puzzled that Franks would resort to violence in a neighborhood he had urged local leaders to make safer.

In recent years, Franks had brought his concerns to City Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who grew up near the Franks family in West Philadelphia and was familiar with his older brothers.

Jones said in a recent interview that Franks had spoken with him multiple times about his frustrations with crime and policing on the business corridor near Mingle.

“What he wanted was better enforcement of laws, and felt frustrated with the reality of our ability to patrol in a way he thought [the corridor] deserved,” Jones said.

And Franks once visited Jones’ office to discuss firearms education for city residents, as well as the possibility of opening a Black-owned shooting range in the neighborhood, an idea Jones said he did not agree with.

The Council member recalled that Franks’ relatives were among the first to open a business on the 54th Street corridor in Wynnefield in the 1970s, a variety store not far from where Franks was killed.

“This whole tragedy, it’s bizarre, ironic, and I grieve for everybody,” Jones said. “The officers that were shot, the family — Franks was a patriarch, the community respected him.”

Funt, the family lawyer, agreed.

Franks cared about “getting more police on the beats, trying to get drugs out of the neighborhood,” Funt said. “I think it was in that spirit that he went there,” to the block in West Philadelphia, on the night he was killed.

How that instinct led to the gunfire that wounded three police officers and ended Franks’ life is a question police and prosecutors will seek to answer as their investigation continues.

Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.