PHILADELPHIA
--
One suspect was charged and a second was being sought Sunday in the killing of a Philadelphia police officer who was shot with an assault rifle while responding to a bank robbery, police said.
Levon Warner, 38, was charged with murder, robbery, conspiracy and related offenses, Deputy Commissioner William Blackburn said at a news conference Sunday.
A second man, Eric Floyd, 33, believed to have escaped from a halfway house in Berks County, was being sought on a homicide charge. A third man, Howard Cain, 33, was killed by police.
The dead officer, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, a 12-year veteran who would have turned 40 on Tuesday, was responding to a report of a robbery of a bank inside a grocery store around 11:30 a.m. Saturday.
The robbers fled, and opened fire after Liczbinski confronted them a short distance away, authorities said. Cain was shot as police pursued the gunmen, authorities said.
"The sergeant didn't have a chance," Blackburn said, adding that Liczbinski was shot at least five times.
Police recovered two vehicles, one of which contained a high-powered assault rifle with 25 live rounds.
Blackburn warned that the wanted suspect, Floyd, should be considered "extremely armed and dangerous."
"The entire Philadelphia Police Department is working nonstop," he said. "We're asking him to turn himself in."
About a dozen blue-shirted officers, some wearing white motorcycle helmets, lined both sides of a black hearse and saluted as the married father of three's body, draped with an American flag, was put in the hearse at the hospital Saturday.
The hearse was escorted away by officers on police motorcycles, some bearing black- and blue-striped flags.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter on Saturday declared a 30-day period of mourning for Liczbinski and requested that all flags in the city be lowered to half-staff for that period.
Liczbinski's killing comes only a few days after Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey announced a major reorganization of the police department's command structure and the addition of nearly 250 officers on street patrols as part of a strategy to reduce crime.
The shooting came about six months after the last death of a Philadelphia officer in the line of duty. Officer Chuck Cassidy, 54, also a father of three, was killed during the botched robbery of a doughnut shop on Oct. 31.
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Funeral Information
Visitation for Sgt. Liczbinski will be held Thursday, May 8 at 6 p.m. at the John F. Givnish Funeral Home, 10975 Academy Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia.
A second visitation will be held Friday, May 9 at 7:30 a.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, 18th Street and the Parkway, where funeral services will be said at noon.
Burial will be at Resurrection Cemetery, 5201 Hulmeville Rd., Bensalem, Penn.
Memorial donations can be sent to the Stephen Liczbinski Family Memorial Trust Fund, 901 Arch St., Philadelphia 19107.
