Gunman who died in Schuylkill was convicted murderer

The masked man who shot three people and a police officer in Center City last night before drowning in the Schuylkill while trying to escape was a convicted murderer only recently released from prison.

After a hot pursuit by police Tuesday night across downtown Philadelphia, the body of Jerome Whitaker, 29, was hauled from the river about 3 a.m. today, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office said.

Court records show that Whitaker pleaded guilty to murder in the 1994 shooting of Michelle Cutner, 6, his South Philadelphia neighbor. His lawyer maintained that Whitaker fired into an unoccupied vehicle in revenge for an earlier quarrel and accidentally hit the girl, who was playing outside.

Whitaker served 11 years in state prison before being paroled in July 2006. He was arrested four months ago on drug charges and recommitted to prison for violating parole. He was released last month when the underlying charges were withdrawn.

Family members say the drug case was dropped after Whitaker proved that he had a prescription for the pills that were found on him at the time of his arrest.

Just six weeks later - Tuesday night - he was again in trouble with the law.

Police say Whitaker rolled up in a sport utility vehicle and opened fire on a parked car near 15th and Sansom Streets at about 10 p.m., wounding two men in their 30s and grazing a 20-year-old woman. The men remained in critical condition at Jefferson University Hospital today. The woman was treated and released.

Police offered no motive for the apparent assassination attempt and declined to release the victims' names, pending further investigation.

After he gave chase, Santiago, 44, an 18-year veteran of the department, was shot in the shoulder, police said, without giving further details. He remained hospitalized today in guarded condition at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Police say Santiago, who was on routine patrol in his squad car, responded to a radio report of the shooting. He intercepted the SUV on the west side of City Hall and gave chase, ending up on Sansom Street, where the gunman crashed his car into the brick wall of Greenfield Elementary School, at 22d and Sansom.

The driver ran to the river.

Witnesses to the midtown mayhem were stunned.

Ed Chen, 25, was eating dinner at Bonner's Irish Pub at 23d and Sansom when he glanced out the door and saw someone running down Sansom "like there's no tomorrow."

"He bolts across [23d] street without even looking to see if there are any cars coming, and I thought that was pretty strange. Then I saw a cop hobbling down the street after him, and I see he's bleeding from the back of his arm."

Chen, a cardiac nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said he ran from the bar to assist the officer, who was "hunched over, trying to talk into his radio."

Chen told the officer he was a nurse and offered to help with the wound when a police car arrived, followed by others, as officers began searching side streets and alleys. A helicopter joined the hunt, aiming its searchlights onto the streets and the nearby river.

Chen said the man he saw running wore a white hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.

The Schuylkill, which is about 300 yards wide where the gunman jumped in, is channelized and flanked by sheer cement walls that rise about six or seven feet above the water - with nothing to grasp.

A workman for the Philadelphia Water Department who operates a boat and was tying up just south of the dock said there are a few ladders along the wall - "but you'd never find them in the dark."

Across town, where the chase began, Sam Driban, owner of the Black Cat Cigar Co. in the 1500 block of Sansom, said he was working late Tuesday night, "finishing my Christmas catalogues, when I heard this 'pop, pop pop.' "

Moments later, he said, the area was flooded with police, hustling down alleys, guns drawn. He said it seemed like "the wild, wild West."

Relatives said Whitaker had been living for about a year with a cousin in Southwest Philadelphia.

He had been working on and off and had just started a job last week at a Northeast Philadelphia company, said his mother, Cynthia Edwards.

She said she last spoke to him in the afternoon before his death. He had just gotten off work and was stopping by to visit family. She said he spoke about being tired and wanting to clean up when he got home. She said there was no indication that he was having problems.

"I don't know what happened," she said.