Prosecutors withdraw charges against a man accused in South Philly mass shooting after new evidence undermines a witness
Prosecutors said they no longer believe Jihad Gray, 36, was involved in the mass shooting on the 1500 block of South Etting Street last July. He had been jailed since August.
Prosecutors on Thursday withdrew charges against a man accused of being one of the gunmen in a mass shooting in South Philadelphia last summer after investigators said new evidence undermined the word of a key witness.
Jihad Gray, 36, has been jailed since August after investigators said he was among at least 15 people who fired guns on the 1500 block of South Etting Street on the night of July 7, leaving three people dead and 10 others wounded.
Gray was charged with three counts of murder, nine counts of attempted murder, and related crimes, after a victim of the shooting told police she saw him shooting on the block that night, said Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope.
But in follow-up interviews, the witness said she was no longer sure Gray was involved, Pope said. And after additional evidence recovered in subsequent months undermined the statements, there was “nothing to corroborate [Gray’s] involvement,” she said.
“We weren’t comfortable moving forward,” the prosecutor said. “And I’m not in the business of keeping people in jail on insufficient evidence.”
“This person is not culpable for this crime,” she said.
She withdrew all charges in connection with the shooting.
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Gray’s attorney Shaka Johnson said Gray has “been tethered to awful facts that he had absolutely nothing to do with.” All along, he said, Gray has cooperated with investigators to “prove his own innocence.”
The witness police relied on to justify his arrest, Johnson said, is “contaminated and stained.”
When police arrested Gray and searched his South Philadelphia home in August, investigators said they recovered drugs and firearms, which Gray is barred from owning due to prior convictions. He remains charged with drug possession and illegal gun possession.
He also faces charges of aggravated assault, intimidating a victim and witness, and related crimes after police said he threatened the victim who later identified him to police. In early August, police say, Gray went to the 2300 block of Mifflin Street and pointed a gun at the woman and threatened to shoot her if she “snitched,” according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Johnson said that wasn’t true. The altercation began with a fight between two women, he said, and Gray arrived with other men nearly 10 minutes later to try to break things up.
Pope said there is video and other evidence that corroborates the intimidation.
Gray is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on those charges next month.
In the interim, Municipal Court Judge Christine M. Hope ordered that Gray be released on house arrest.
Four other men — Daquan Brown, 21, Terrell Frazier, 22, Brandon Fisher, 17, and Dieve Jardine, 45 — remain charged in the mass shooting, and a judge ruled at a January preliminary hearing that there was enough evidence against them to proceed to trial.
A fifth suspect, 24-year-old Christopher Battle, remains at large.