Three days after a lone gunman stalked through West Philadelphia's streets, firing apparently at random at anyone he came across -- including a Philadelphia Police sergeant, two bar employees, a woman and man in a car and a University of Pennsylvania police officer -- a more complete picture is emerging of the shooter.
Sources have shared with NBC10's Deanna Durante more about what gunman Nicholas Glenn wrote in the rambling note addressed to "doomed people" that police found on the 25-year-old after they shot him dead in a shootout after his violent spree on Friday night.
In the note, NBC10 has learned, Glenn wrote in the third person, referring to himself as "Solo Tattoo Tears." He wrote about seeing his probation officer, adding that "Solo Tattoo Tears" doesn't like that the officer sent him for another mental-health evaluation.
In another line of the note, according to sources, Glenn wrote about himself walking among the doomed population.
The note, described as "ramblings" by law-enforcement officials, contains rants and raves of Glenn's dislike for police and his probation officer, but stops short of indicating exactly why he chose Friday night to take a 9mm handgun and open fire in his rampage, which began shortly after 11 p.m. at 52nd and Sansom streets.
The note, in which Glenn referred to prosecutors as law counselors and his defense attorney as his spokesperson, gives no indication that he would harm civilians.
Glenn was no stranger to the law. NBC10 Investigator George Spencer delved into the young man's court and prison record and learned that Glenn was jailed eight different times since 2009, and that during those stints in the Philadelphia Prison System, he was placed in "punitive segregation" three times over the last two years for fighting.
A spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Prison System said that punitive segregation is not solitary confinement, but it was unclear exactly what it means.
A woman whose mother took Glenn and his sister in when they were young children told NBC10 that although she hadn't spoken with Glenn in several years, she heard from other family members that he changed while he spent time behind bars.
"His sister was telling me that the last time he got locked up that they had kept him in the hole," the woman, who asked not to be identified, said. "And when he came home, he was like, out of it. He tried to commit suicide. He left a suicide note."
The woman said she was shocked to learn that the boy she grew up with became the rampaging gunman she heard about on the news over the weekend. She said he was a "great child" and didn't have any behavioral troubles when they were children.
"He went to school, got good grades and graduated, even went as far as looking for a job, trying to work and stuff like that," she said. "This is something I can't believe he did."
Glenn's attorney, Anthony Petrone, also said over the weekend that Glenn spent stretches in what he described as "solitary confinement" for fighting while in jail. Petrone also said it seemed that jail changed the young man.
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"I did notice with him a serious change in his attitude and overall demeanor during the period of time that he was incarcerated up in the county prison," Petrone told NBC10. "I remember visiting him frequently, and he had to be pulled out of solitary, and I remember he was having a very difficult time in dealing with the solitary confinement."
Petrone added that Glenn slowly became "more and more despondent" and that he saw a change in his demeanor and ability to communicate.
The majority of Glenn's arrests stemmed from drug cases, but he was also arrested for allegedly participating in a gang rape of a woman in 2009 -- but that case was dropped.
Virtually all of Glenn's crimes happened within a few blocks of his shooting rampage. Twice he was arrested on drug charges at 55th and Sansom streets, according to records. He also faced a drug arrest nearby, at 57th and Walnut streets. At 55th and Locust streets, also in the same West Philadelphia neighborhood, he was arrested after being accused of assaulting a relative. The gang-rape case that was eventually dropped occurred at 56th and Walnut.
The first person Glenn met and shot in his deadly rampage Friday -- during which police say he fired more than 50 rounds over the span of several blocks, discarding empty magazines and reloading -- was Philadelphia Police Sgt. Sylvia Young.
Young, who is assigned to North Philadelphia's 22nd District but was on a patrol detail in West Philadelphia at the time, sat in her marked cruiser at 52nd and Sansom when authorities say Glenn approached her window and fired 18 shots. She suffered gunshot wounds to her shoulder, arm and side, but miraculously, survived and is in stable condition.
Responding officers began to respond, pursuing Glenn as he continued east on Sansom Street. Along the block between 51st and 52nd streets, Glenn passed the Maximum Level Lounge, where a 42-year-old man who works as a bar manager and a 41-year-old woman who tends bar there were helping a wheelchair-bound patron in the open doorway. Glenn passed the bar, then turned and fired off five rounds into the doorway, police said, wounding the manager in both legs and the bartender in her ankle. Both were in stable condition and are expected to survive.
Glenn continued along Sansom Street, stopping on the 4800 block to approach a Nissan Altima where 25-year-old Sara Salih, who lived on the block, sat with a 36-year-old man. Glenn opened fire on the pair, fatally wounding Salih with a barrage of bullets to her chest, and critically injuring the man.
Glenn's spree didn't end there. As two police officers responding to the frantic "shots fired" calls and Young's calls for help screaming over police radio, police say Glenn turned toward their marked police SUV on the 4800 block of Sansom and opened fire, sending bullets into the truck's hood and driver's side door. The officers were not hit.
Glenn then continued onto 48th Street, where he met Edward Miller, a retired Philadelphia Police sergeant who works for University of Pennsylvania's police force. Miller confronted the raging gunman, exchanging gunfire with him, and Glenn managed to fire rounds into the officer's hip and leg. Miller has since been released from Penn Presbyterian Medical Center after undergoing treatment.
Police say other officers then rushed in and confronted Glenn, who exchanged gunfire with them until their return fire wounded him several times. He fell to the ground there, on the 100 block of South 48th Street, and died at 11:45 p.m.
Officers recovered the firearm Glenn used, a Ruger Model SR9 9mm pistol with the serial number scratched off, at the scene. When they found it, police said, the gun still had 14 live rounds. Empty magazines Glenn had discarded along his way were found scattered throughout the four-block crime scene.
Where Glenn obtained the gun, and exactly what sparked the mass shooting, remain under investigation.
