Police in Pennsylvania shot and killed a man on Tuesday who tried to use his car to run over officers as they attempted to arrest him on charges of making online terroristic threats against law enforcement, officials said.
Police in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, were trying to serve an arrest warrant on the 52-year-old man when the late afternoon shooting occurred on a well-traveled intersection, a department official said.
As officers approached, the suspect put his car in reverse, stepped on the gas, and rammed a police vehicle, a police report said.
Five officers opened fire, Upper Darby police said. No officers were wounded.
"The officers were in fear of their lives and did what they had to do," Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"He threatened to kill police, threatened to kill FBI agents," he told the newspaper.
The suspect, identified as Joseph Pacini, was wanted on charges of making terroristic threats on social media, including YouTube, against police and the FBI, the official said.
Court records showed Pacini had been arrested twice in Philadelphia in the past 10 years, and was previously charged in 2005 with making terroristic threats and possessing instruments of crime, among other charges, but those were withdrawn, the Inquirer reported.
It was unclear if he had family in the area.
