Three alleged members of a Norristown gang are on trial for a rival gang members’ slaying
Prosecutors say Jabriil Morgan-Cook, Naseem Worrell, and Kaleem Roland killed a member of a rival gang in 2025 because he mocked a friend of theirs who had been recently killed.
Three alleged members of a Norristown street gang will face a Montgomery County jury next week for, prosecutors said, valuing the code of the street over another man’s life.
Jabriil Morgan-Cook, 20, Naseem Worrell, 19, and Kaleem Roland, 17, are all charged with murder, conspiracy and related crimes in the May 2025 killing of Tahaj Andru “Pooh” Harrison.
Wearing masks and armed with guns, the trio allegedly shot Harrison, 20, as he stood on the steps of his home in Norristown, Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Hughes said during her opening statement. He survived long enough to stumble into his backyard and collapse in front of his mother.
Harrison became a target for the trio, Hughes said, after mocking the death of a member of the All Black Bandits/300s, the street gang they belonged to.
“Tahaj Anderson was only 20 years old when he was senselessly murdered by these three defendants, who valued their gang membership and street reputation more than the life of someone else,” Hughes said.
But defense attorneys for the three took turns Friday doubting the validity of the case, saying investigators relied on circumstantial evidence and statements from other gang members who had incentive to pass blame.
Worrell’s attorney, Richard Giuliani, said there is no direct evidence tying the teen to the crime.
“There will not be one witness who will get up there and say, ‘I was there, I saw him, Naseem was one of the shooters,’” he said.
And Thomas Egan III, who is representing Roland, told jurors that the use of the term “gang” is overblown.
“These are loosely affiliated groups of kids who lived near each other and went to school with each other,” he said. “This not like the gangs depicted in movies.”
But Hughes said there is an abundance of evidence connecting the three to the case. And it was not difficult to find: Hughes said they documented the feud through social media posts that explained exactly what they planned on doing.
Harrison, himself a member of the Grimy Boys/6s, a rival gang, posted a derogatory comment on an Instagram post honoring Seth “Pop” Marshall, a 15-year-old member of the All Black Bandits/300’s. Marshall was slain in a West Philadelphia corner store three days before Harrison was killed, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed in this case.
In response, Worrell threatened Harrison in messages sent through Instagram, and Harrison challenged Worrell to come find and attack him, as seen in excerpts from those messages included in court filings.
“The message was that no one was going to diss his dead friend and not face consequences,” Hughes said. “Because to them, disrespect is a death sentence.”
An hour before Harrison’s death, Worrell, Morgan-Cook, and Roland met at a home on Basin Street that served as a hangout for the gang, according to the prosecutor.
There, Morgan-Cook posted a live video to Instagram that showed all three teens brandishing handguns. In that video, Morgan-Cook boasts that he “might kill somebody tonight,” Hughes said.
Morgan-Cook’s attorney, George Yacoubian Jr., urged jurors not to take the video seriously. His client, he said, was simply “puffing” himself up, and the threats were empty.
“There is not going to be any forensic evidence ... that links back to Jabriil Morgan-Cook and the death of Tahaj Harrison,” he said.
Not long after that video was posted, three masked men walked to the block of Corson Street where Harrison lived. As Harrison stood outside, the three opened fire, striking him once in the chest, prosecutors said.
Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
The shooters, Hughes said, all wore clothing similar to what the three suspects wore in the Instagram video. And a loaded handgun magazine left at the scene contained Worrell’s DNA.
Cell phone data showed that after the shooting, the three men took Ubers out of Norristown, according to Hughes.
Worrell and Roland were arrested in the following days. But Morgan-Cook attempted to elude police, and was eventually caught at a home in Pottstown, hiding under the floorboards in a crawlspace.
The trial is expected to resume Monday before Montgomery County Court Judge Steven T. O’Neill.
