Officer kills
robbery suspect

A Philadelphia police officer shot and killed a 16-year-old robbery suspect early Saturday morning in Tacony as the youth allegedly pulled a shotgun on the officer during a foot chase.
A police radio report of a robbery on the 6100 block of Torresdale Ave. precipitated the 12:30 a.m. confrontation. While en route to the scene, two officers from the 15th district spotted two males matching the description of the suspects, said Capt. Benjamin Naish of the public affairs unit.
When the officers stopped the males for questioning, one ran away. One of the officers chased him, while his partner stayed with the other suspect.
The fleeing male led the officer into a common driveway or alley at the rear of Ditman Street near Robbins Avenue, Naish said. The suspect then pulled a shotgun and allegedly pointed it at the officer, who returned fire and wounded the male once in the buttocks.
The male, later identified as Tyronn Sparks, 16, of the 6300 block of Edmund St., was pronounced dead from the wound about an hour later at Frankford Hospital-Torresdale.
The second male, identified by police as Sparks’ 18-year-old brother, was taken into custody for questioning but later released as investigators determined that the two teens were not involved in the Torresdale Avenue robbery.
Police located and interviewed the person who made the initial robbery complaint, Naish said.
No further information was released about the reported robbery. But detectives are trying to determine if Sparks and his brother were involved in a separate robbery.
The officer who shot Sparks has been placed on administrative duty pending the completion of a mandatory internal affairs investigation.
Naish noted that the incident was the third fatal on-duty shooting by Philadelphia police this year. A fourth death occurred when a suspect shot himself during a gun battle with officers, the police spokesman said. ••