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PHILADELPHIA -- A city police officer was shot in the arm yesterday while trying to interrupt a robbery, but still managed to chase down the alleged gunman and make an arrest.
"It didn't hurt that bad. Once the guy took off, I was determined to run him down," Officer Mark S. Uffelman, 52, said.
Uffelman and partner Officer Dave McAndrews were in plain clothes patrolling the Bella Vista neighborhood, near where aspiring teacher Beau Zabel was fatally shot June 15 in an apparent robbery.
Zabel, 23, had recently moved to Philadelphia from Austin, Minn., and was scheduled to start teaching high school math in the city this fall.
The officers saw a gunpoint robbery in progress around 1:30 a.m. and identified themselves as police, authorities said. The two gunmen took off running, and one began shooting as Uffelman chased him, hitting the officer near his elbow, police said.
Uffelman, whose father was a police officer fatally shot off-duty in 1978, called his mother from the hospital to assure her he was okay.
Police identified the alleged shooter as Thabit Munir Rakin, 42, of Camden, N.J.; his alleged accomplice, who was captured by McAndrews, was identified as Jonathan Massa, 22, also of Camden.
They were held without bail and a homicide detective said last evening that they did not have lawyers.
