Philadelphia SWAT corporal fatally shot while serving a warrant

• Tom MacDonald/WHYY
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  WHYY reporter Tom MacDonald is a lifelong Philadelphia area resident who has worked in the region since the mid-1980s. Tom started in commercial radio covering the MOVE standoff with police for WFIL-AM. He was also City Hall Bureau Chief covering government and politics for more than a decade for WWDB-FM.
  Tom has been heard on numerous stations in the region during the decade he worked for Metro Traffic, doing news, traffic and weather.
  Tom has also been heard nationally, doing reports for NPR, ABC News Radio, NBC Radio, and CBS Radio.
  He has won the Associated Press award for his coverage of the protests of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and a Religious Communicators award for a post-9/11 documentary he did with the late Peter Jennings.
  
  Tom MacDonald is a lifelong Philadelphia area resident who has worked in the area since the mid 1980s. Tom started in commercial radio covering the MOVE standoff with police for WFIL-AM. He was also City Hall Bureau Chief covering government and politics for more than a decade for WWDB-FM.
  
  Tom has been heard on numerous stations in the region during the decade he worked for Metro Traffic, doing news, traffic and weather.
  
  Tom has also been heard nationally, doing reports for NPR ,ABC News Radio, NBC Radio, and CBS Radio.
  
  He has won the Associated Press award for his coverage of the protests of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and a Religious Communicators award for a post 9-11 documentary he did with the late Peter Jennings.

 NBC10

Police converge on Bridge Street in Philadelphia's Frankford neighborhood, where a police officer was shot and killed while serving a warrant.

Editor’s note: This developing story will be updated. 

(Philadelphia) — A member of the Philadelphia Police Department’s elite SWAT force is dead after a shootout early Friday in the Frankford-Torresdale section of the city.

Cpl. James O’Connor, 46, was shot around 5:45 a.m., officials said. He was shot in the shoulder above his bulletproof vest when officers entered the home to serve an arrest warrant in a murder case.

He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Five people were in the house when the officers arrived. Two people were wounded and in stable condition, authorities said. Three people are in custody, including the subject of the warrant. That person was not wounded, city Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.

“This is a bad day,” Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters outside Temple University Hospital.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said when the officers tried to enter the building, bullets came flying through the door on the 1600 block of Bridge Street.

“These officers didn’t get a chance,” she said. “Gunfire erupted immediately as they walked in the door.”

O’Connor, was a 23-year veteran of the force, and served on the SWAT team for 15 years, according to Outlaw.

O’Connor is married and has two grown children, Outlaw said. O’Connor’s son is also a member of the police department. His daughter serves in the U.S. Air Force.

Two civilians from the home where the warrant was being served were shot in the lower extremities and taken to the Einstein and Jefferson hospitals. The murder suspect was taken into police custody.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

WHYY is the leading public media station serving the Philadelphia region, including Delaware, South Jersey and Pennsylvania. This story originally appeared on WHYY.org.

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