Eric Lewis told investigators he would not have shot the two Philadelphia police officers on his porch if they had been black.

According to the arrest report and law enforcement sources, Lewis said he opened fire because the officers were white. "I did what I did because they did what they did," he said. He complained that they "should not have entered his porch or placed their hands on him," and said they only grabbed him because they were white. He allegedly told a black female officer that if she had been the one to respond, it would have just been a conversation. He also bragged that he made more money than the officers did.

Early Saturday morning, October 10, police say Lewis shot Officer Shane Seiber three times and his partner 12 times, then fired at nine more officers who rushed to the scene. Seiber died. His partner, a 33-year-old father of five, survived and is still in the hospital. Lewis was found hiding in a tree two stories up, holding the wounded officer's service pistol, loaded with a magazine taken from Seiber's belt. He now faces 76 charges and is being held without bail.

Lewis was well known to Philadelphia's courts before Saturday.

In 2019, Lewis was charged with murder and aggravated assault in a road-rage double shooting. He walked. Two years later, in 2021, he was charged with assault and gun crimes and held for trial. That case fell apart when the key witness died. Before that, he had convictions for theft in 2012, carrying a gun in public and simple assault in 2015, and disorderly conduct for fighting in 2018. Each time, he got probation.

Philadelphia had Lewis in court five times in less than a decade, including a murder charge, and every time he went home.

On Tuesday, Soros-backed District Attorney Larry Krasner explained why Lewis was free to be on that porch, and his answer was to blame the police.

Krasner's office said the 2019 murder case fell apart because of a "deeply troubled investigation." According to Krasner, an officer on that case was in a relationship with Lewis's sister and tried to "torpedo his own testimony," including by pointing investigators toward a made-up suspect called "Spice." Krasner called it "beyond outrageous." His office said its prosecutors "did everything humanly possible" and that "a highly-respected judge was forced to find Lewis not guilty."

Krasner held that press conference while the department was preparing to bury one of its own.

The Philadelphia Police Department pushed back. "Assigning blame while families are grieving does nothing to advance accountability or support those affected," it said in a statement. "Where accountability is warranted, we will act, as Commissioner Bethel has already demonstrated."

Krasner is the model for a movement. A former defense attorney who sued Philadelphia police dozens of times, he became the city's top prosecutor in 2017 with roughly $1.5 million in help from a George Soros–funded PAC, then fired dozens of veteran prosecutors in his first week. Soros money has backed the same kind of Democratic prosecutor across the country. San Francisco voters recalled Chesa Boudin in 2022, and Los Angeles voters threw out George Gascón in 2024, after both spent years letting criminals off the hook, and putting them back on the street instead of in jail. Pennsylvania's House impeached Krasner in 2022. He's still in office.

The double standard is hard to miss. If a white man told police he shot two black officers because of their race, the country would be talking about nothing else. There would be statements from the White House, vigils in every major city, and wall-to-wall coverage of hate in America. Here, a man told investigators he shot two officers because they were white, and the DA's headline was about a cop who dated the suspect's sister.

Shane Seiber had already served his country before he joined the force. He was an Air Force airman with the 436th Security Forces at Dover Air Force Base and did two tours in Iraq, from 2007 to 2009. He grew up in Levittown and Langhorne in Bucks County and joined the Philadelphia Police Department in 2016, spending his whole career in the 22nd and 19th Districts. Friends called him "Colgate" because he was always smiling. He loved jiu jitsu and World of Warcraft. He leaves behind his wife of 11 years and two young children.

When SWAT officers found Lewis in that tree, he begged them not to shoot him. They didn't. They brought him down alive.

Seiber's viewing is Monday, October 19, at the John F. Givnish Funeral Home. His funeral will be Tuesday at noon at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Lewis's preliminary hearing is set for October 26.