PoliceLink

Last of Philly Cop Killers Captured

Philadelphia Police officers view a memorial for Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski in Philadelphia, Monday, May 5, 2008. Liczbinski was fatally shot while responding to a bank robbery Saturday. (AP)

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Eric DeShawn Floyd, 33, the fugitive wanted in the slaying of police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, was arrested last night and is expected to be arraigned this afternoon.

The suspect, who had been on the run since Liczbinski’s murder on Saturday, was sleeping upstairs in a front bedroom at 5432 Windsor Ave., a boarded-up middle-of-the-block rowhouse, when police got him, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said early this morning.

Floyd was with a girlfriend, but a homicide detective declined this morning to reveal her identity or say whether she was in custody. Police received a tip late yesterday that led to the Floyd’s capture.

More details are expected after an 8 a.m. commanders’ meeting, a police spokeswoman said.

Televised reports on NBC10 say Floyd made a confession earlier this morning but it was not clear whether he confessed to being involved in the shooting, the bank robbery that preceeded it or both.

The takedown of Floyd came at 11:10 p.m. in Southwest Philadelphia. He was unarmed and offered no resistance, Ramsey said.

In capturing Floyd, police beat a self-imposed deadline to nab him before the sergeant’s funeral tomorrow.

For the next hour, Floyd was held in Southwest Philadelphia, waiting for Homicide detectives to bring Liczbinski’s handcuffs for him to be restrained for the ride to Police Headquarters. A police tradition is to use a slain policeman’s handcuffs on his suspected killer.

Floyd arrived at Police Headquarters at 12:20 a.m. inside a van from the 24th Police District, the dead officer’s station. Mayor Nutter and his security detail arrived at the same time.

The van then backed into a loading bay, and Floyd and his girlfriend were whisked into an elevator, away from the view of the public and the many reporters who had gathered there. The entire episode was was a somber, businesslike affair, without any reaction from the officers there.

“The one emotion that everybody shared was relief,” Ramsey later said.

Afterward, the mayor told reporters said he got within two feet of Floyd.

“I looked him dead in the eye when he came in, and I told him how disappointed I was in him,” Nutter said. There was no response from the suspect, the mayor added.

Liczbinski’s family, reached late last night by phone, said they were relieved. They were preparing for tonight’s viewing in the Far Northeast and tomorrow’s funeral.

Earlier, authorities pursuing a flood of tips, raided apartments in Logan and West Philadelphia and stopped at least one lookalike in their relentless hunt for Floyd.

A platoon of black-uniformed tactical officers searching for Floyd came up empty after raids on one apartment at 13th Street and Lindley Avenue in Logan and another on Vine Street in West Philadelphia, police said. They also stopped a passenger on a SEPTA K bus on Adams Avenue in the Lower Northeast after receiving tips prompted by a $150,000 reward for Floyd’s arrest and conviction.

Police said that none of the tips appeared to be solid, but that they were committed to pursuing all of them.

“We are going to follow every lead, and the Earth simply isn’t large enough for this individual to hide forever,” Ramsey said earlier.

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