Monday
01Nov
Philadelphia Police: Officer shot Black man in back
Monday, November 1, 2004 at 02:42PM
A 22-year-old Hunting Park man killed by police
last Monday night near his home after pointing a handgun at an officer was
shot in the back, police said yesterday. Authorities say William
Baylor, of the 4100 block of North Franklin Street, was chasing another
man and firing shots at him about 6 p.m. near Darien Street and Hunting
Park Avenue when a police van arrived. The officers ordered Baylor to
drop his weapon. Instead, police said, he turned and pointed the gun at
them. One of the officers in the van, Robert McCollum, 40, of the 25th
District, fired five shots at Baylor from his service weapon, police
said. One of those slugs hit Baylor in the left side of his back and
exited his chest, an autopsy has revealed, according to investigators.
Homicide Unit detectives will examine how Baylor received the back
wound and the position he was in when shot in relation to McCollum,
police said.Members of Baylor's family are incensed over the killing
and upset that police kept them back from the scene and away from him
at the hospital. They contended that no life-saving procedures were
performed and that police allowed him to lie too long at the scene.
Police dispute both accusations, reporting that cardiopulmonary
resuscitation was performed on Baylor and that he arrived at the
hospital - about a mile away - at 6:12 p.m., 12 minutes after the
shooting. Baylor's mother, Cheryl, 37, said "They said he was shot in the back and it came out his chest.
He was only shot one time," Baylor said she was told by a morgue
official. "Why would you shoot my child in the back? I don't get it,"
she said. [more 
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