Crash on Broad hurts 2 Philadelphia police officers

Two Philadelphia police officers were seriously injured Wednesday night in a crash between their cruiser and a Jeep at Broad Street and Hunting Park Avenue, police said.

Shortly before 9 p.m., Highway Patrol officers stopped a vehicle containing at least one person at 15th and Wingohocking Streets and requested backup, police said.

Two officers in a 25th District patrol car responded to the call for assistance and headed north. The driver was identified only as a woman with eight years on the force. Her colleague in the cruiser was a man with six years' service. They were riding in the same direction as the Jeep, police said.

"Both were going northbound," said Lt. Raymond Evers, a police spokesman. "There was some kind of contact, and they ricocheted."

The cruiser struck a fence and a pole, Evers said. The female officer's neck and head were injured, and the male officer was injured in the hip area, Evers said.

Both officers were in stable condition late Wednesday at Temple University Hospital.

At the hospital, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said: "I'm just happy we've got a situation [where] . . . it's not life-threatening."

Alex Gwozdz, 24, and Jill McCarty, 19, who had been heading north on Broad Street in McCarty's Jeep Wrangler, said the cruiser smashed into the Jeep's left rear bumper as the light at Hunting Park turned green.

Chief Inspector Scott Small said late Wednesday night that the vehicle stopped by Highway Patrol at 15th and Wingohocking was a stolen rental car. One person was arrested at the scene, he said.