A Philadelphia police officer died after being shot in the head Thursday afternoon during an attempted robbery of a video-game store in North Philadelphia, officials said. Two suspects, one of whom was shot, were in custody.

The officer, Robert Wilson III, was an eight-year veteran and father of two young children. He was 30.

"He was doing his duty as a police officer to protect the citizens of this city," Mayor Nutter said at a news conference near Temple University Hospital, where Wilson was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m.
The shooting happened inside a GameStop store at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue in the Swampoodle neighborhood. Wilson was inside the store shortly after 4:30 p.m., Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said.

Two men, Ramsey said, intended to rob the store and were armed with two handguns - a .20-caliber and a 9mm - and started shooting at Wilson.

One of the assailants was shot in the leg and taken to Einstein Medical Center. The other, while hiding his weapon under his clothing, attempted to blend into the crowd. He was apprehended at the scene, Ramsey said.

Wilson was shot at least twice. The call for "officer down" came at 4:44 p.m.

"He was one of the best police officers this city has to offer," Ramsey said.

Wilson was a volunteer in the department's body-camera program, but it was not immediately known whether he was wearing one Thursday, Ramsey said.

The GameStop is in a strip mall next to the former site of Connie Mack Stadium, which was demolished in 1976. Glass from the store's front door and windows was shattered.

Traffic on Lehigh Avenue was blocked from 19th to 22d Streets as the season's largest snowstorm dwindled. Patrol cruisers, SWAT vehicles, and unmarked police cars descended upon the scene.

Robinson Rodriguez, whose family owns a grocery store at 22d and Lehigh, said everyone in the store ran out to the street when they saw police cruisers flying by. They watched as an ambulance took the officer away. Around 6 p.m., police walked into the store, looking for witnesses, and told the Rodriguez family that the officer had died.

"I was hoping he was OK," Rodriguez said. "To hear he's dead, I don't even know what to say."

There have been robberies in the neighborhood in the past, Rodriguez said.

"But nothing like this," he said. "Not people dying like this."

The last Philadelphia officer killed in the line of duty was Moses Walker Jr., who was shot Aug. 18, 2012, after his shift in an attempted robbery near a bus stop. Walker, like Wilson, was an officer in the 22d District.