A stop-and-frisk preceded the Philly shooting that left a man dead and an officer shot, witness says

A witness to the shooting in Fairhill Friday that left 28-year-old Alexander Spencer dead and a police officer shot said that officers stopped and searched them without provocation before gunfire rang out, then an officer shot Spencer in the back during a chaotic scuffle.

The man, whose account was shared with The Inquirer on the condition that he remain anonymous due to fear of retribution, said he and Spencer were playing virtual gambling games Friday inside Jennifer Tavern, a beer store and deli, when two officers entered and asked them to lift their shirts.

“They came back straight toward us and started picking at us, like, ‘You don’t have any guns, right?’” the witness said in an interview with Terence Jones, a former Philadelphia police officer who’s now an activist. Jones provided audio of the interview to The Inquirer with permission from the witness, and four people corroborated that the man was at the scene Friday and was depicted in another witness’ video standing behind Spencer and the two officers.

The witness said he and Spencer complied and showed their waistbands. As they tried to leave, he said, the officers grabbed Spencer and attempted to search his jacket, initiating a struggle that ended on the ground.

One shot went off — the witness said he couldn’t see from where — and hit an officer. Then the other officer shot Spencer in the back while he was on the floor, the witness said.

“You don’t see that he shot anything, [Spencer] is just trying to get up and he can’t breathe,” the man said. “The officer puts the gun right to his back and shoots him. I saw the fluff from inside his coat go up.”

Police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp said Monday that he could not comment on why police confronted Spencer or where on his body he was shot, citing an ongoing investigation. The officers have not been identified. Police and District Attorney Larry Krasner are scheduled to address the incident during a joint news conference Tuesday morning.

» READ MORE: Video raises questions about police shooting of Alexander Spencer in Fairhill as police investigate chaotic struggle

The witness’ account comes after a now-viral video, which documented about 30 seconds of the chaotic struggle and was published on Instagram Saturday, raised questions about what preceded the scuffle.

Philadelphia police officers are authorized to use deadly force if they believe there is an immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death to themselves or others.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Friday following the shooting that Spencer fired two shots that injured the officer in the leg. After the video circulated and only two shots in total could be heard, police maintained that Spencer fired first. Police said another man at the deli — Jose Quiñones-Mendez — stole Spencer’s gun and fled the scene. He remains at large.

Jones, who investigates police shootings through his nonprofit Total Justice, called on the city to release the surveillance footage from inside the beer deli and provide a more detailed account of the events leading up to the shooting.

“Right now, the people in that neighborhood don’t trust the police department, because they’re constantly being harassed,” Jones said.

City officials have declined to release surveillance footage of the incident.

The injured officer, a nine-year veteran of the police force, was released from the hospital Monday.

Spencer was transported to Temple University Hospital and was pronounced dead. In Fairhill, he leaves behind a grieving circle of friends, who said he was trying to turn his life around, fix his credit score, and bring joy to young children in the neighborhood.

Many in the neighborhood knew Spencer as “Dot.”

He was part of the regular crew that hung out at Jennifer Tavern — or as they called it, “the deli.”

In a neighborhood riven by crime and drug dealing, the deli was their haven. It was where Dot threw birthday parties and hosted Eagles games with a speaker system on Sundays, often buying drinks for friends and food for people who couldn’t afford it.

”He went out of his way,” said “P,” a friend who requested anonymity due to fear of police retaliation.

Court records indicate Spencer had been arrested several times, most recently in October for possession of an instrument of a crime. But his friends said he was turning his life around. Azaid Wilson, 30, said he helped Dot build up his credit score and develop a plan for financial stability.

”Dot wanted that,” Wilson said.

Friends said Spencer grew up in the foster-care system, and that he looked out for people from his neighborhood. Despite a strained relationship with his own two children, friends said, he went out of his way to be a role model to his friends’ children, often walking them to school or taking them to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“He got through to my son,” P said inside the deli Monday.

Wilson said he and Spencer were routinely stopped by police officers who worked in the 24th Police District. The two officers in the deli that night were well-known to Spencer and his circle of friends, who referred to them as “jump-out boys,” a term for a heavily criticized police stop practice that has been tied to other officer shootings.

Wilson said that stops like the one Friday are common and were a root cause of distrust in the police for nearby residents. The deli, he added, was not a known hot spot for shootings.

”The first shooting in this store was the cops shooting in here,” he said.

While gun violence has long been rampant in the neighborhood, the intersection where the deli sits has not seen a shooting since 2020, according to shooting data tracked by the city controller.

Saturday’s viral video raised questions as to whether the officers were engaging in the controversial police tactic known as “stop-and-frisk,” the legal mechanism police can use to stop and search people in public places.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a Democrat who was sworn into office earlier this month, ran on a tough-on-crime platform and embraced the legal use of pedestrian stops as a necessary crime-fighting tool. Before the video was released Saturday, Parker expressed unequivocal support for the officers, saying, “As the mayor of the city, I support them 1,001%.”

“As it relates to the details of the incident, they will conduct a full-fledged investigation, and that is what we will do at any time where there’s any kind of shooting,” she said. “But what’s most important to me now is the officer is stable.”

Asa Khalif, a racial justice advocate who opposes the use of stop-and-frisk, said the mayor’s statements since the shooting amounted to “blanket support” for police before the facts were known.

“No one should go and say, ‘I support an institution 1,001%’ without leaving room for an independent investigation,” he said.

An officer can stop a person if they see something or learn information that amounts to a possible crime. In Pennsylvania, merely having a gun does not meet the legal standard necessary to make a stop or conduct a frisk, said David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer on a team of attorneys who monitor the Philadelphia Police Department’s use of stop-and-frisk under a federal consent decree.

Rudovsky said, “That kind of situation fairly frequently leads to impermissible stops.” But he said the law is clear that if a suspect uses a weapon illegally — like firing it during an altercation — an officer may use deadly force to protect themselves.

» READ MORE: What is constitutional stop-and-frisk?

Over the last decade, the use of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia has declined precipitously, decreasing from nearly 199,000 pedestrian stops in 2015 to about 9,600 last year.

There has also been a significant improvement in the number of stops made with the proper legal justification. According to a filing by the American Civil Liberties Union, 87.2% of stops made by Philadelphia police in the first half of 2023 were conducted with reasonable suspicion. The rate, according to the ACLU, was 40% to 50% in the first several years of monitoring.

The rate of legal frisks also improved, with 77% made with reasonable suspicion, an improvement over the 2019 rate of 68%.