Man charged with attempted murder over police shooting

The FBI is investigating why a male suspect who police say confessed to wounding a Philadelphia officer “in the name of Islam” took trips to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the past five years.

In last Thursday’s shooting, the suspect, Edward Archer, 30, even gave a written confession and explanation of why he tried to kill 33-year-old police offer Jesse Hartnett, police said. She described him as devout Muslim.

They said he began expressing interest in Islam as a teenager, played in a local Muslim football league and worked on construction jobs.

Video camera footage shows Archer firing a weapon as he runs at police auto in which Hartnett is sitting, then leaning into the window of the vehicle and running from the vehicle as he fires his weapon again.

“Philadelphia Police Captain James Clark said on Friday at a press conference, “[Archer] said he pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, he follows Allah and that was the reason he was called on to do this”.

“He just came out of nowhere and started firing on him”, he said. “Those who carry out attacks in the name of ISIS or any other terrorist organization must be fully prosecuted”. “He was kind but I noticed that change”.

Thursday’s shooting is likely to raise further concerns about the threat posed by homegrown extremists within the United States, inspired to act by ISIS jihadists based in Iraq and Syria. An imam at a mosque near Archer’s house said he did not know the gunman. Kevin Washington said Archer was “OK” at the language before even signing up for classes.

The officer quickly spun around, preventing the suspect from removing his gun, and engaged in a brief struggle before subduing him with assistance from the Penn Security team and other officers at the scene.

The female tipster told police that Archer also attended a mosque at 45th and Walnut streets, where he “became more radical”. The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office says the baby was discovered unresponsive and unconscious on January 3rd in her home on the 5700 block of Monmouth Avenue in Ventnor, New Jersey. Not many people would have survived an ambush like that.

Jacob Bender, executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Archer’s actions did not represent those of Muslims or the Islamic faith.

“The citizen alleged the defendant had an affiliation to a group with radical belief”, the police department said.

Washington said he was unsure what had led Archer to shoot a policeman.

The gunman does not, in fact, sound like a scholar of Koranic scripture, and the mayor is right to do all he can to discourage leaps to judgment, and he is right to keep the investigation focused on the gunman, and not Islamic scripture and Edward Archer’s interpretation of the Prophet’s words as recorded in the Koran.

“The Philadelphia Police Department and Federal Partners take this type of information very seriously, particularly after the recent attack on Officer [Jesse] Hartnett”.