PHILADELPHIA — A man using a gun stolen from police said he was acting in the name of Islam when he ambushed an officer sitting in his marked cruiser at an intersection, firing more than a dozen shots at point-blank range, authorities said Friday. The officer and the man were wounded during the barrage of gunfire, they said.
The man, 30-year-old Edward Archer, also pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group when he was questioned after his arrest in the shooting late Thursday, police said. Archer’s mother, Valerie Holliday, told The Philadelphia Inquirer he had been hearing voices recently and had felt targeted by police and the family asked him to get help.
Police Commissioner Richard Ross described the attack on Officer Jesse Hartnett, captured on a police surveillance camera, as an attempted assassination.
“He just came out of nowhere and started firing on him,” Ross said. “He just started firing with one aim and one aim only, to kill him.”
Investigators believe Archer traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and to Egypt in 2012, FBI special agent Eric Ruona said, and the purpose of that travel was being investigated by the FBI. But police said there was no indication anyone else was involved in the officer’s ambush.
Ross said Archer told police he believed the police department defends laws that are contrary to Islam. Though Archer “clearly gave us a motive,” Ross said, it’s up to police to see what the evidence shows.
Federal agents joined local police in searching two Philadelphia area properties associated with Archer, including the home where his mother lives in suburban Yeadon, authorities said.
Capt. James Clark said Archer told investigators: “I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State, and that’s why I did what I did.”
Archer’s mother described him as a devout Muslim. Jacob Bender, the executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, said he contacted about five inner-city mosques and found no one who knew of Archer. He said the motive for the ambush still appears to be conjecture.
The gunman fired at least 13 shots toward Hartnett, getting up next to the car and reaching through the driver’s-side window, investigators said.
Despite being seriously wounded, Hartnett got out of his car, chased the shooter and returned fire, wounding his attacker in the buttocks, police said. Other officers chased Archer and apprehended him.
Hartnett, 33, was shot three times in an arm and will require multiple surgeries; he was listed in stable condition. Archer was treated and released into police custody.
Hartnett served in the Coast Guard and has been on the Philadelphia force for four years.
