Cop runs over bicyclist during high speed chase

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Officials near the city of Philadelphia say they are investigating an officer who ran over a bicyclist during a high speed police chase.

Officials say they are trying to determine what happened, but local media sources have already begun spinning the story to favor the officer involved.

The local media has more information than the police have given out to everyone, but numerous sources have already begun conjecture about the collision happening "after" the police chase. We asked the Delaware Sheriff's department and the Chester Police if they had made any such claim, and they told us they had not.

Right now, they say they have turned the investigation over to the Delaware County District Attorney's Office. They tell us that this is the normal procedure in any police related fatality case.

The community and the victim's family say they want answers now. Specifically, they want to know how the officer could have possibly been justified in running over the suspect, identified as 24-year-old Sherman Byrd.

This all happened at around 8:30 Wednesday night, after a 55-year-old woman reported having her cell phone stolen.

Sheriff's deputies were nearby. They said they saw a suspect on bike who looked like the man the victim had reported.

They claim they are confident Byrd was the culprit, but they have no other evidence than their hunch and the fact that he had a weapon. Byrd's family say it is ridiculous to imagine he would have robbed anyone.

He was in fact only in town visiting his 6-year-old daughter and to attend his sister's high school graduation. To suggest that he would have taken a "robbery break" during his visit is not only out of character, but also just strange, according to friends and family.

In fact, his family says he had only taken a quick trip to the store in the middle of a family gathering. To suggest that he needed to run out to steal a cell phone made little sense to anyone who knew him.

To add insult to injury, the Upland Police Department has charged Byrd's father and another relative with assault for getting aggressive with a police officer at the hospital when and where Byrd died.

Watch the local report