Police Officer Albert Savich

Albert Savich

Officer Savich was shot and killed, and another officer was wounded, by a man they were trying to arrest in a restaurant on 19th Street above Spring Garden. The 25-year-old suspect, a restaurant employee, had shot a customer during an argument over a bottle of soda pop. The suspect was arrested and charged with murder.

The suspect, who had recently been released from a North Carolina mental hospital and was illiterate, testified that he thought the plain cloths officers were gang members he had trouble with earlier. He was acquitted.

Officer Savich was a World war II veteran and served with the Philadelphia Police Department for almost three years.