Boy, 16, Charged With Shooting Officers
Published: 11/14/07, 6:05 PM EDT
By JOANN LOVIGLIO
AP News

PHILADELPHIA
A teenager was charged Wednesday with shooting two undercover narcotics officers as they were trying to serve an arrest warrant, the fourth and fifth officers shot in this city in the last few months.

Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said police trying to serve the warrant in the city's Frankford section rang a house's doorbell twice Tuesday night, then used a battering ram on the door. The shooter fired at them through a window, he said.

One officer was shot in the leg and the other was wounded in the hip. Both were treated at hospitals and released.

"Both of them are very, very lucky," Johnson said.

Donyea Phillips, 16, was charged as an adult with nine counts of attempted murder - one for each officer at the scene, police said. In addition to the attempted murder charges, Phillips was charged with possession with intent to deliver drugs, and with aggravated assault.

A message left after hours with the public defender's office to see whether Phillips had an attorney was not immediately returned.

Mayor John F. Street decried what he called a "deterioration of respect for law and order and for our police department" and urged lawmakers to help the city get illegal guns off the streets.

Said Mayor-elect Michael Nutter: "It's outrageous. We have to get the word out that we will not tolerate people shooting Philadelphia police officers."

The officers' names were not disclosed because they work undercover.

The shootings happened less than two weeks after Officer Chuck Cassidy, 54, was shot when he walked in on a robbery at a doughnut shop on Oct. 31. He died the next day. A suspect was arrested days later in Miami and is now in custody in Philadelphia.