What we know about the Philadelphia Police officer shot in Kensington

A Philadelphia police officer was shot over the weekend and remains in critical condition after officials say he and another officer stopped Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez, 36, for driving a car with a temporary license plate and no proper registration in Kensington.

After trying to barricade himself in a house near the stop, Vazquez was arrested and now faces charges including attempted murder.

Here’s what we know about this shooting.

Two Philadelphia Police officers stopped the car Vazquez was driving on the 3500 block of F Street at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. Officers conducted the stop because the car had a temporary license plate and did not have proper registration, police said.

Vazquez also didn’t have a license, police said, so the officers called for a tow truck to take his Toyota sedan away.

In an attempt to stop his car from being towed, Vazquez called his sister to have her show the officers her license, according to police. Vazquez’s girlfriend, who had been driving in a car behind him, also arrived and tried to persuade officers to allow them to keep the car, police said.

As officers conducted a search of Vazquez’s car before it was to be towed away, police said, one of them found a gun holster near the driver’s seat. Vazquez took off running as the officers were about to confront him about the weapon.

Seconds later, Vazquez turned and started shooting a gun he’d been carrying in his waistband, hitting one of the officers in the neck, police said. He then ran to a nearby house, where police said he threatened a resident sitting on the porch at gunpoint before attempting to barricade himself inside a bedroom.

SWAT officers arrested Vazquez at that house Saturday night, police said. Vazquez later confessed to shooting at the officers, according to sources briefed on the case, saying he did so because he didn’t want to go to jail.

Vazquez was arraigned early Monday on charges including attempted murder and aggravated assault on an officer, illegal gun possession, evading arrest, burglary, and kidnapping. He remained in jail on $12.5 million bail, court records show.

Vazquez has no previous arrests in Pennsylvania, records show.

However, he was arrested in Puerto Rico in 2011 for allegedly shooting at two police officers there.

Vazquez, then 21, and another man, 24-year-old José M. Serrano Ares, stole an SUV at gunpoint, then fired shots at two responding officers, according to a report from Periódico Impacto Noreste, a news magazine in Puerto Rico.

Both were charged with crimes including attempted murder and firearms violations, but it was not immediately clear what happened with the case, or whether Vazquez was ultimately convicted of the crime.

Mayor Cherelle Parker described the 31-year-old Philadelphia Police officer as a husband and father who has been with the department for more than six years. Police did not release the officer’s name.

The officer was at least the eighth Philadelphia police officer to be shot since October, including Officer Richard Mendez, who was fatally wounded that month at Philadelphia International Airport while investigating a suspected car break-in.

Also in October, three officers were shot and wounded in the city’s Rhawnhurst section while responding to a report of a domestic shooting. In January, another officer was shot and wounded in a Fairhill convenience store. Two other officers were wounded in incidents that month.