By Ellie Rushing, Brett Sholtis, Maggie Prosser, Barbara Laker
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA -- Three Philadelphia police officers were wounded in a shooting late Saturday after an argument with a retired city firefighter escalated, and the man opened fire on them in the street, law enforcement sources and city officials said.
The gunman was killed by officers in response, officials said.
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Police responded to reports of gunfire at a car near North 54th and Arlington Streets in the Wynnefield section of West Philadelphia around 10:30 p.m., Commissioner Kevin Bethel said at a news conference early Sunday.
A 57-year-old man — identified by his family and law enforcement sources as Eric Franks — then confronted four officers on the block and began arguing with them, according to video of the encounter obtained by The Inquirer.
The video appeared to show an animated Franks yelling at officers while another man attempted to hold him back. Franks, according to the video, then pushed a sergeant.
Bethel said the officers repeatedly told him to “stand down” before attempting to arrest him about 10:45 p.m.
As the officers tried to detain Franks, the video showed him break free, then pull a gun from his waistband, and begin shooting at the officers in the street. The officers and several civilians could be seen diving behind cars and scattering for their lives.
Four officers shot back at Franks, Bethel said. Three, including a sergeant, were struck by gunfire and taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. One officer was shot in the face, one in the hip, and another in the leg, according to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. The officers’ names have not been released by officials.
All were reportedly stable Sunday.
The video then showed Franks stumbling down the sidewalk before collapsing. He died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital at 11 p.m. , Bethel said.
Bethel said the gunman was not involved in the initial incident for which police were called.
“Why he elected to come into that scene and engage the officers — whether this was premeditated — we will walk through that process to see,” Bethel said. “But you don’t come to a situation like that … to engage the officer. We all can start to think of what potentially his intended purpose was.”
Franks’ family attorney James Funt said Bethel should not have “insinuated” that Franks may have planned the shooting.
“That’s just not true,” Funt said. “I don’t know where he got that information.”
Funt said Franks was a community activist who had met with Philadelphia City Councilmember Curtis Jones and police to address an increase in drug crimes in the neighborhood.
On Saturday night, Franks was managing a 16-year-old’s birthday party at his event space business at the other end of the block when his son called him to tell him that someone had shot a car, Funt said. Franks ran to the corner to see if he could help, he said.
Franks, Funt said, was a former U.S. Marine and a firearms instructor who, he believed, was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
“He is not someone who would try to be an initial aggressor,” Funt said.
Funt said he doesn’t know what led up to the confrontation captured on video, but it warrants a full investigation and the review of any additional video recordings to get the full picture.
“All we want is for the facts to come out,” Funt said.
City payroll records show Franks retired from the Philadelphia Fire Department in September 2025 after nearly 20 years on the job.
Mike Bresnan , president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 22 , declined to comment Sunday. A city spokesperson for the fire department referred questions to the police.
The officers, ages 43 and 30, have worked as Philadelphia police for two and eight years, respectively. The sergeant, whose age wasn’t given, has been with Philadelphia police for eight years, according to Bethel.
“These men and women give their lives for this work,” Bethel said. The mayor also commended the officers’ resiliency and resolve. “We’re just grateful that tonight, they will survive their injuries.”
On Sunday, officers with the police department’s crime scene unit continued to comb the block — a street of porch-lined rowhouses and small businesses — for evidence and witnesses. Police pulled several fired shell casings, caked in mud, from a sewer drain.
Across the street, a group of people who identified themselves as Franks’ relatives gathered outside the event space called Mingle, that the family owns.
Franks’ wife, Michele, referred questions about the shooting to Funt.
But in a brief phone interview, she tearfully described how they’d been together ever since they went to their senior prom at Overbrook High School in 1986.
“He’s a husband, father, a man of the community,” she said.
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