Trial Ordered for 2 Men in Deadly Salvation Army Store Collapse
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Two men charged in connection with the fatal collapse of a building near 22nd and Market Streets that killed six people have been ordered held for trial on charges of third-degree murder and related crimes.
At a preliminary hearing today, the prosecution presented video of the collapse from a surveillance camera aboard an approaching Septa bus, showing a wall collapsing on the Salvation Army building last June 5th (see related stories).
Several pedestrians on the sidewalk are seen barely escaping injury or death as a cloud of dust engulfs the street corner.
A detective who arrived on the scene minutes after the collapse testified that the thrift store building was pancaked by the falling wall. In that instant, victims inside the building were crushed.
Six people -- Anne Bryan, Roseline Conteh, Bobor Davis, Kimberly Finnegan, Juanita Harmin, and Mary Simpson -- died, and 14 others were injured, some seriously.
Anne Bryan's father said after court, "We're gratified that it sounds like the investigation is ongoing and we hope that everyone will be held accountable from bottom to top."
Demolition contractor Griffin Campbell and heavy-equipment operator Sean Benschop were faulted in a report by the district attorney into the cause of the fatal accident.