Eric Lewis, the man charged with killing Philadelphia Officer Shane Seiber and wounding his partner in an ambush attack on Saturday, told investigators he opened fire because the officers were white.
Lewis, 35, a Philadelphia Water Department employee, was arrested after a nearly hour-long standoff early Saturday on the 100 block of North 52nd Street.
Officers had been called just after midnight for a man with a gun on a porch.
When they arrived, Lewis walked up from across the street, according to a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
They asked if he lived there, and he began yelling.
A brief struggle followed.
As the officers moved to check whether he was armed, he shot them, a law enforcement source told the Inquirer.
The suspect kept firing after they were down, the source said, yelling that he had told them to get off his porch.
After SWAT pulled Lewis from a tree that he climbed as an apparent escape attempt, they found he was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and a Glock taken from one of the wounded officers. They took him to Jefferson University Hospital.
🚨 OMG. The thug who ambushed police officers in Philadelphia just admitted he targeted them because they are WHITE
If this were reversed, it would be wall-to-wall coverage on every network as a hate crime.
Eric Lewis, who m*rdered one of the officers, JUST TOLD INVESTIGATORS: He did it because they are white
Because. They. Are. WHITE.
THIS IS INFURIATING! 😠
Lewis has a major rap sheet, a known criminal. He saw white officers then opened fire. Because of their skin color
This is what anti-white hatred does when it’s provoked in the media for years.
Rest in peace, Officer Shane Seiber 🙏🏻
Seiber was a 40-year-old Air Force veteran and a father of two little kids.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 12, 2026
According to the arrest report, he said he shot the officers after they put their hands on him.
“I did what I did because they did what they did,” he said.
He also said he shot them because they were white.
He told one officer at the hospital, a black woman, that “if it was you that responded we would have just had a conversation.”
Lewis added, “They had guns, so I had every right to defend myself.”
Seiber, 40, a father of two and a 10-year veteran of the 19th District, was hit three times and died hours later at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
His partner, a 33-year-old father of five and nine-year veteran, was shot 12 times and remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition.
Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Seiber “fought valiantly, but he lost his life.”
Seiber leaves a wife and two children, ages 7 and 3. He had just celebrated his 10th anniversary with the department and was an Air Force veteran.
Lewis faces charges of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer, and related offenses.
He has been denied bail and a preliminary hearing is set for October 26.
