Man died of overdose after scuffle with SEPTA officer: Medical examiner

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled that a man who died during an altercation with a SEPTA police officer in October had an accidental fatal drug overdose.

Omar Lopez, 24, was tasered at the Market-Frankford El’s Huntingdon station during a late-night scuffle with a SEPTA officer in October, Philly.com reported. Lopez died shortly after the incident.

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Jeff Moran, a spokesman for the Medical Examiner’s Office, said that his cause of death, though, was an overdose of phencyclidine, or PCP, Philly.com added.

SEPTA provided security camera footage from the night of Lopez’s death that shows him walking through the station accompanied by a SEPTA officer, a related Daily Beast article stated, adding that some of the security footage that should have been recorded had not been released.

At the time, SEPTA’s account of the incident centered on the officer’s claim that he had to use his stun gun to subdue Lopez when the officer intervened after Lopez began arguing with a man outside the station, Philly.com added. Lopez died at Aria Health-Frankford Campus Hospital minutes later.

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Lopez was jailed in 2013 for drug possession and had a drug-dealing conviction, according to court documents referenced by Philly.com.