Two overnight police-involved Philly shootings leave one man dead

Philadelphia police were involved in a pair of unrelated overnight shootings that left one man dead and another hospitalized with a gunshot injury to his leg.

The first shooting, on the 5300 block of Grays Avenue, occurred around 11 p.m. Tuesday night, CBS3 reported. After police initially heard gunshots, they found a man, about 40 years old, standing behind a house firing a gun into the air.

When authorities told the man to drop the weapon, “[He] aims and fires one shot at police, misses, and one of the officers fires two times back and shoots [him] in the leg,” Lt. Raymond Evers said to CBS3. “We have the male in the hospital – he is in custody.”

The second shooting happened around 1 a.m. near the corner of Overbrook and Lancaster avenues, according to NBC10, which added that police had received calls from college students about a suspicious man in the area.

When police tried to stop the man — identified by police as Richard Ferretti, 52, of Andreas — described in the calls, he allegedly attempted to flee in a minivan, NBC10 added. Authorities said he then tried to run down officers attempting to stop him.

“Apparently, [the driver] attempts to flee from them, trapping one of the officers between the car and some other area where [the officer] didn’t feel he could escape, and he discharged his weapon,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross was quoted by NBC10. “That male was struck, one time I think, and he was subsequently pronounced dead.”

On Wednesday, investigators were back on the scene examining the minivan, according to CBS3, which added that it had crashed into another vehicle on Overbrook Avenue during the shooting.