A fired Philadelphia police officer has been charged with murder in the shooting of a fleeing 12-year-old boy that prosecutors said Monday was on the ground and unarmed when a police officer fired the deadly shot.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has announced charges of first- and third-degree murder against former officer Edsaul Mendoza in the March 1 shooting of Thomas TJ Siderio. Police say the young man first shot at an unmarked police car, injuring one of four plainclothes officers inside.
Mendoza, 26, was also charged with manslaughter and other charges, according to a grand jury presentation released Monday. He was fired on March 8 with the intention of firing.
Court records show Mendoza surrendered on Sunday and was denied bail, a rare treatment for former law enforcement officials facing charges.
A spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 said the union plans to provide a lawyer for the officer. Court records show the attorney general’s office represented Mendoza at his bail hearing on Monday. The defender’s association declined to comment on the case.
The details of the box are not sealed
New details of the shooting were revealed in the printed documents of the grand jury on Monday, including that Siderio threw a gun about 12 meters from the place where he was shot, and that the young man fell to the ground, or stumbled or obeyed command. to come down. . Krasner said the policeman passed between two parked cars and fired a fatal shot from a distance of about half a car from the sidewalk position behind the young man.
Krasner said much of the evidence was based on a video that was not made public but was shown to the grand jury. According to grand jury documents, prosecutors have created a composite video of two cameras, one that captures clear visual images of a foot chase and the other captures a different angle of view but captures the sound of gunfire.
“It is certain that (Siderio) stopped running and probably surrendered … and was essentially face down on the sidewalk,” Krasner said, saying the young man was in a facial position, looking back at the officer.
Krasner called the whole footstep “tactically incorrect” and said the video was “disturbing to watch”, although when pressed, he declined to characterize the shooting, except that it was clear that there was evidence to support a murder charge. First degree.
There is no indication that race was a factor in the shooting of Siderio, who was white.
Police said the four civilians were in an unmarked car on the night of March 1, looking for a teenager they wanted to interview in connection with a firearms investigation. They saw two young men, Siderio and an unnamed 17-year-old, and maneuvered the car around the block and climbed up to them to stop.
Prosecutors said Monday that almost at the same time as police turned on the red and blue lights, a shot came through the rear passenger’s window and ricocheted around the car. Prosecutors said it was not clear from the video whether the boy knew he was a police car when he fired, but the investigation is ongoing.
One police officer was treated for eye and face injuries caused by broken glass.
The policeman knew that the young man was unarmed, says DA
Mendoza and another police officer on the passenger’s side came out and fired one shot each. Mendoza then chased Siderio across the block, shooting twice and hitting the boy once in the back from what prosecutors said was “relatively close.”
Krasner said Mendoza immediately told another officer that Siderio had thrown his gun back, signaling to prosecutors that he knew the boy was unarmed. He said the video also showed the policeman slowing down and changing his approach, and that he was able to see Siderio on the ground when he fired the fatal shot.
Police found a firearm that was reported stolen and noted in the days after the shooting that it was loaded with another bullet into the cell.
A lawyer representing Siderio’s father in a lawsuit against the city and an employee did not comment.
Mary Siderio, the boy’s great-grandmother, told KYW-TV that she was happy with the news but was still “heartbroken” about the circumstances.
“I can’t sleep. None of us can sleep. It’s awful.”
The court document also notes a handful of controversies in Mendoza’s story that the boy aimed a gun at him before firing the last two shots, and that he was standing in the street when he fired the fatal shot instead of almost over Siderio on the sidewalk.
He also raised questions about whether officers had initiated a traffic stop against the two boys because they had ridden their bicycles in the wrong direction on a one-way street to talk to them about the firearms investigation. He notes that none of them was the purpose of this investigation. Unmarked cars and employees in civilian clothes must stop traffic only in dangerous circumstances, according to the directives of the department.
“It is certainly a situation that could have had a very different outcome if there had been a marked police car,” Krasner said, postponing questions about the behavior of officers from the police commissioner’s task force.
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