Police in a neighborhood bordering West Philadelphia are crediting a gun owner for saving an Upper Darby police officer from being brutally attacked by a crowd of kids. Police say that officer would have been “dead meat” if no one stepped in and held back dozens of teens who surrounded him during a fight between two high school boys.
Just as school was letting out Friday afternoon–less than a mile from Upper Darby High School- an officer was breaking up a fight between two teens, with a crowd of about 40 to 50 kids watching.
Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said: “As he breaks up the fight, he takes one kid and then the other jumps [on] him. Now he’s fighting two of them and he’s calling for an assist officer at the same time.” This, as the large crowd starts to move in closer.
That’s when a good Samaritan- who lives nearby- came outside with his gun and told the teens to get away from the cop. He managed to keep the crowd at bay until backup officers arrived. Police emphasized the man was not pointing his gun at the kids.
Chitwood believes had the gun owner not come out – the officer would have had “significant problems.” He already suffered ‘significant’ injuries to his hand, and another officer responding suffered a major injury to his leg.
The incident eerily resembles the assault of another police officer in Allentown, about 50 miles from Upper Darby, which was caught on video.
In all, eight teenagers were arrested that day, including the two that were fighting with the cop, for aggravated assault on an officer, riot, harassment and other related offenses. Six more were arrested for fighting at two other locations, near the school, at around the same time.
After-school patrols have doubled around Upper Darby High since then, police say.
A majority of these kids are decent kids, Chitwood said, it’s the ‘wannabe gangsters’ that are the problem – he told philly.com.
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