Police fatally shoot ‘person of interest’ in Lawncrest triple homicide

Police officers on Monday morning fatally shot a man believed to be connected to a triple homicide that occurred several hours earlier inside a home in Lawncrest, authorities said.

Just before 5:15 a.m. Monday, medics pronounced three people dead following a shooting at a house on the 6100 block of Shelbourne Street, police said. No further information was released about the victims.

A fourth person, an adult woman, was transported to Einstein Medical Center after being shot in her eye, according to investigators.

At around 7:45 a.m., officers pulled over a car at E. Phil Ellena and Ross streets in East Mount Airy in an attempt to apprehend a “person of interest” in the shooting, authorities said.

Preliminary information indicates that the man, who was a passenger, fired at least one shot at police, and an officer returned fire, striking the man, according to a PPD account. He died at around 9 a.m. at Einstein Medical Center.

Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford told reporters at the scene that the driver of the vehicle was taken in for questioning.

The officer who shot the man received treatment for minor hand injuries, caused by broken glass, police said.

Stanford said that the man was “some type of family member” to those who were killed in the Lawncrest shooting, which remains under investigation.