Police: Mother shoots, kills son's armed attacker

EAST OAK LANE - December 28, 2011 (WPVI) -- Police tell Action News a mother shot and killed a robbery suspect who moments before shot her son.

Clarence Wesley, who lives in the building, tells Action News that she is a hardworking, good woman who came to the defense of her son.

"That's the only way, I feel, she would do something like that, is to defend her son," said Wesley. "That's the only way."

Tuesday night around 9:00, Clarence Wesley rushed out of his apartment upon hearing multiple gunshots. He saw his downstairs neighbor, a mother standing in the stairwell with a gun in her hand at the Adams Run Apartments on the 100 block of east Godfrey Avenue in East Oak Lane.

"She said, 'Call the police, I just shot him, I think he's dead.'"

Wesley says she told him her son was in the basement laundry room when the 19-year-old armed man attacked him. Police say her 23-year-old son was shot and pistol whipped with his girlfriend nearby.

Authorities say the mother heard the commotion, grabbed her loaded gun, that she has a permit to carry, and went to his aid.

Wesley explains what he heard, saying, "I heard two shots, then I heard three rapid shots after that."

Chief Inspector Scott Small says, "It appears preliminarily that she was intervening in a robbery that was being committed against her son and she had to use deadly force."

Medics pronounced the 19-year-old dead at the scene.

The 23-year-oldvictim was transported to Albert Einstein Medical Center where he's in stable condition.

His motherand his girlfriend were taken to police headquarters for questioning. There is no word on charges at this time.

No names have been released in this case.

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philadelphia, pennsylvania, east oak lane, shooting, crime

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