Trial Ordered for Philadelphia Man Accused of September Murder in Grays Ferry
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Philadelphia man has been ordered held for trial for a murder and for shooting at police just minutes after another, unrelated murder in the same Grays Ferry neighborhood.
Philadelphia police have testified to the danger and subsequent carnage during that night last September.
Seventeenth District officer Mark Davis testified he and his partner were looking for a suspect in the first murder when they saw defendant Rhamik Beckett open fire on a group of people standing on the corner of 31st and Tasker Streets.
One man went down, wounded, and according to investigators, Beckett then finished him off.
"It was nothing short of an execution," says prosecutor Brendan O'Malley. "And immediately after the murder, the shooter turned his gun upon two uniformed police officers, one of which returned fire."
The officers were not wounded, but O'Malley says a stray bullet fired by Beckett hit a woman in the face, nearly killing her. (That victim has not cooperated with authorities, and charges in her shooting have been dismissed.)
Beckett's attorney says his client acted in self-defense, and the attorney claims that evidence will show the murder victim fired on Beckett first. The attorney says Beckett fired at the uniformed police because he mistakenly believed they were gang members.
