Skip to footer

Thousands honor Philadelphia police officer slain at GameStop store

A funeral was held Saturday for Robert Wilson III, a Philadelphia police officer fatally shot while trying to stop a video game store robbery.

  • By Michael R. Sisak Associated Press

| Philadelphia

Mourners packed a sports arena for the funeral of a Philadelphia police officer fatally shot while trying to stop a video game store robbery.

Thousands of officers in blue dress uniforms stood silently as Officer Robert Wilson III's family entered the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday. A large sketch at the arena's entrance of the 8-year department veteran was covered in mourners' signatures.

Wilson was killed March 5 at a GameStop store in north Philadelphia. He had stopped for a security check and to buy a game for his son.

Police say the 30-year-old father of two was getting the game to reward his son for good grades and for his 10th birthday, which was Monday.

Two brothers have been charged with murder in Wilson's death.

The Philadelphia City Council honored Wilson on Thursday, a week after he was killed at a GameStop store in North Philadelphia. 

Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby tells The Philadelphia Inquirer the he GameStop retail chain is making a "very large" donation to Wilson's family and will collect money in stores for a trust fund benefiting the family.

People held a vigil and released white balloons in Wilson's neighborhood Wednesday night.

Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer is one of several recent senseless attacks on law enforcement.

Holder mentioned Officer Robert Wilson III's death in a statement Thursday on the wounding of two officers in Ferguson, Missouri.

Holder condemned the attacks and said threats or violence against police officers would never be tolerated. "Such senseless acts of violence threaten the very reforms that nonviolent protesters in Ferguson and around the country have been working towards," Holder said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Thousands honor Philadelphia police officer slain at GameStop store
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0314/Thousands-honor-Philadelphia-police-officer-slain-at-GameStop-store
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe