Thousands of police officers from across the country gathered in Philadelphia Tuesday to bury Shane Seiber, the patrol officer shot and killed in the line of duty on Oct. 10. During the service at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel announced Seiber had been posthumously promoted to sergeant.
Seiber spent 10 years on the Philadelphia police force after a decade in the Air Force, which included two deployments to Iraq. Officers from Pennsylvania and other states filled the cathedral to honor him.
Prosecutors say Seiber and his partner were responding to a report of a man waving a gun in West Philadelphia when a man identified as Eric Lewis approached them from behind and demanded to know what they were doing on his doorstep. An argument and struggle followed, and prosecutors allege Lewis opened fire, hitting Seiber three times and his partner 12 times.
Lewis was taken into custody after a standoff with SWAT officers. He was allegedly carrying two handguns — one of them an officer’s weapon — and a shotgun.
Seiber’s partner, Officer Hector Rodriguez III, 33, a father of five, survived his injuries, according to FOX 29 Philadelphia, which identified him.
Lewis, 35, had previously been acquitted in a murder case. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said that earlier case suffered from a
