Philadelphia Police are investigating a viral photo of two officers sleeping inside a marked vehicle.
Several NBC10 viewers sent us the photo Saturday after it went viral on Facebook.
A woman, who did not want to be identified, told NBC10 she and her husband were walking in the Kensington section of the city around 2 a.m. Saturday when they saw the two 24th District officers sleeping in a marked vehicle near D and Cambria streets.
"They were caught sleeping with the windows down," she said. "That could have been another cop getting shot."
The woman told NBC10 the area the officers were in is known for drug activity and violence. She also said police began to patrol the intersection where she saw the sleeping officers after a rash of recent shootings.
"I'm not even looking out for the safety of us," she said. "It's the safety of you too. Because two windows [are] down, look what happened in New York, with the cops sitting in the car."
Philadelphia Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford told NBC10 the Department knows who the officers are and discipline could range from a reprimand to a suspension.
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"In this line of work, you are a target when you have on identifiers such as a uniform or you're sitting in a marked patrol car," Stanford said. "Again, we saw this earlier this year in New York. Two officers that were having lunch were murdered."
In December, 2014, a gunman ambushed NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn, New York. Both officers were killed in the shooting.
"We're lucky that we're not burying officers today and again, I'm not trying to be overly dramatic," Stanford said. "It's just the reality of it that there is the concern that something could have happened to them."
Police continue to investigate.
"We're not gonna make excuses for why this happened," Stanford said. "The bottom line is it happened, it shouldn't have happened, and it will be addressed."
