Black Police Officer Shot in Philadelphia

After a day patrolling the streets of Philadelphia, police officer Moses Walker Jr. was gunned down during his walk home early Saturday morning. Authorities think the shooting took place during a robbery, reports ABC News. The city is offering a $20,000 reward and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 is offering a $10,000 reward to find the shooter. This killing coincides with an increase in homicides in Philadelphia.

Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Walker's death is a blow for a department still mourning the loss of Highway Patrol motorcycle officer Brian Lorenzo, who was killed last month in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 95 ...

"This department has been through an awful lot," he said. "In just the 4½ years that I've been here, this would be the seventh officer we've lost, which is more than some departments get in 20 years."

From 2006 to 2009, eight officers died in the line of duty from either gunfire or vehicular assault. Half of those deaths occurred in 2008, two of them when stolen vehicles rammed their cruisers.

The general homicide rate in Philadelphia has risen sharply in recent years. After falling to just over 300 a year in 2009 and 2010, the City of Brotherly Love recorded a total of 324 homicides last year and is reporting just under one homicide every day so far this year.

Read more at ABC News.

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