Oct 15, 2008 11:30 pm US/Eastern
Officers Cleared In New Year's Shooting
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ―
City police were justified in shooting an unarmed man in the head as he fled a New Year's Eve "shooting party" because the man refused to stop and reached for his waistband, the district attorney concluded Wednesday.
Police recovered 155 shell casings and cartridges from 14 different weapons when they arrived at a pair of West Philadelphia row houses in the first few moments of 2007, District Attorney Lynne Abraham said.
After exchanging gunfire with several men -- some of whom were on a roof -- police ordered a pair of males running from the homes to stop, Abraham said. When one of the two, 20-year-old Bryan Jones, reached for his waistband, an officer fired a fatal shot, she said.
"Mr. Jones was not an innocent bystander," said Abraham. Jones was known to carry a gun and had gunpowder in his waistband, she said.
"I am sorry that he had to lose his life. All he had to do was halt, and put up his hands," Abraham said.
Philadelphia police have come under criticism for the fatal shootings of 42 civilians in 2006 and 2007 alone, including the grandnephew of a former mayor. Abraham, meanwhile, has taken heat for the length of time her office has taken to determine if the shootings were justified.
At a news conference Wednesday, she said she understands concerns from Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and others that long-unresolved probes undermine public confidence in the police department.
However, she said, "I'd rather be right than be quick."
In a separate case Wednesday, Abraham cleared Officer Michael Ferrari in the July 2007 fatal shooting of armed suspect Julio Rivera during a roadway domestic violence call.
In the Jones case, she cleared Officer Stephen Szczepkowski, one of numerous officers on the scene, saying innocent lives were in jeopardy.
Jones was one of more than a dozen men at a party hosted by young men who had terrorized the otherwise law-abiding neighborhood. An anonymous Dec. 22, 2006, letter sent to an advocacy group described a neighborhood under siege and voiced particular concern about the upcoming New Year's Eve holiday -- when celebratory gunfire has become a harrowing city tradition.
Jones' relatives, who have filed a wrongful-death suit against the city, say he went to the house to retrieve a 14-year-old nephew. Their lawyer said that any rational person would have tried to flee the violence.
"He was shot in the head a half a block away, with no gun on his body. He was no threat to anybody," lawyer Bruce Ginsburg said Wednesday.
Ginsburg also represents two other police gunfire victims, including a child grazed by a police bullet while attending a 2008 New Year's Eve party.
Police answered a midnight eruption of street gunfire with a shot that penetrated a home, killing a partygoer, 33-year-old Abel Isaac, and grazing the 8-year-old child.
"It's dangerous out there, but the police are supposed to be part of the solution, not part of the problem," Ginsburg said.
Seven of nine men detained at the 2007 New Year's Eve party have since been charged with other serious crimes, including murder, prosecutors said. Police initially charged some of them with shooting at police, but the charges were dropped due to the difficulty of determining who in the group fired upon whom.
Police found six guns on the roof and three elsewhere. They were all illegally obtained, and included a gun stolen years ago from a state trooper, a stolen .357 Magnum, a gun once sold in North Carolina and resold at a gun show, and the .38 Special police linked to Jones, which was once sold in Gulfport, Miss.
At the crime scene, police marked the ground with plastic numbers for each shell casing found, in keeping with their practice. Abraham released two photos showing a sea of yellow plastic triangles covering a double driveway.
"There were so many spent cartridges, the police ran out of numbers," Abraham said.
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