Homeless man killed in confrontation with city police officers

The homeless man made his first emergency call to police at 6 a.m. Friday.

From a call box in the below-ground concourse of the Municipal Services Building, he kept calling - and hanging up.

Calling - and hanging up.

After the 40th time, a police officer was dispatched at 8:25 a.m. to see what was going on.

But what started as a response to disorderly conduct ended with two police officers fatally shooting the homeless man - the 12th person killed by police this year.

Police were withholding the identity of the 59-year-old African-American man, pending the notification of his family, said Sgt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.

Evers said the man had no identification on him and had to be identified using fingerprints.

Both the Homicide Unit and police Internal Affairs are investigating the shooting. Both officers, whose names were not released, have been on the force for more than 20 years.

After arriving on the scene, the foot patrol officer was joined by bike officer. Evers said as the patrol officer approached the man, he was once again using the emergency call box.

"He confronted him, saying, 'What are you doing? You can't do that,' " Evers said.

A security guard inside the municipal building, who did not give her name, said she saw the officers chase the man through a tunnel leading to the concourse.

Once he was outside near the bench where he often slept, the man pulled out a utility knife.

Evers said the knife was the type used to cut dry wall or carpet. "The officer tells him over 50 times to drop the knife," Evers said.

Police said he lunged at the officers. They fired, hitting the man in the torso.

The victim was pronounced dead at Hahnemann University Hospital at 9:02 a.m.

On any other weekday, the area would have been busy at that hour with people heading to work or to the nearby criminal and municipal courts, which were closed for the 4th of July holiday.

Paul Tolis, who operates a coffee cart at the top of the concourse, said the homeless man had been in the area on a daily basis in recent months. A bench where he slept was padded with cardboard and police said they collected some of his belongings from the scene, along with the knife.

The underground corridors around City Hall and Suburban Station draw daily nighttime crowds of homeless men and women. The last time the city conducted a spot-count of the Center City homeless population on May 20, there were 189 people sleeping in underground public spaces.

Transit police who patrol SEPTA property typically move people out of public areas before dawn with little incident.

Police, too, are trained to call the city's homeless outreach teams if they encounter disruptive people and are coached on how to intervene with mentally ill people during a crisis.

An overwhelming of people who live on the streets suffer from mental illness. The city's behavioral health department estimates that of the homeless street population, about 85 percent have severe mental illness, addictions or a combination of both.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com