Moore, 37, of West Philadelphia, a seasonal water-ice vendor and part-time electrician, was not armed. He was not being sought for a crime and had not called police.
Shields, a four-year veteran assigned to the 18th District, was the first officer to respond Nov. 9 to 6019 Christian St. for a report of a "burglary in progress." It was warm. Neighbors were out. Children played.
The 911 complaint, investigators would learn, was made by a parent of Moore's late wife, Halimah Ramadan, who died in August of cancer. Moore and his wife bought the redbrick house and moved in in February 2010. The estate is in Ramadan's name and is not settled. Moore's in-laws want him to move out.
The in-laws were not at the property when they called police twice that Saturday, claiming that someone was in the house who did not live there.
Moore went downstairs to check the alarm.
Shields, according to law enforcement sources, told investigators he found the front door slightly open and went inside, where Moore advanced toward him in the living room and made a threatening movement toward his waist. Shields said he backed up and fired from the porch.
Moore said he made no threatening movements and had no time to approach Shields. Shields did not identify himself and fired without warning from behind the cracked-open vestibule door, Moore said.
"No words were exchanged," Moore said recently in his University of Pennsylvania Hospital room. "I didn't say anything. I just came down the steps and saw someone in the doorway, and the guy just shot me, just that fast."
The slug left two holes the size of silver dollars in Moore's right arm, then ripped into his chest, collapsing a lung. Four operations later, he has been released from the hospital.
Shields, in his late 30s, has been placed on desk duty and cannot comment on the case because it is an open investigation, said Lt. Ray Evers, a Police Department spokesman.
