Philadelphia man charged with murder for the third time, Pa. Attorney General's Office says
Richard Pridgen, 21, is a member of the “Backblock” gang, and is at the center of three separate killings, state prosecutors said.
A Philadelphia man has been charged with fatally gunning down another man three years ago on a North Philadelphia street, authorities said Thursday.
A grand jury on Wednesday indicted Richard Pridgen, 21, on charges of murder, attempted murder, and related crimes, for the 2023 shooting death of George Smith, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
The case marks the third time state prosecutors have charged Pridgen with murder. He is currently serving a 17-year federal prison sentence for a separate crime.
In a news release on Thursday, state prosecutors said Pridgen is a member of the “Backblock” gang, a violent North Philadelphia group that has been at the center of joint investigations by the attorney general’s office, the Philadelphia police department, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for years.
Just before midnight on April 22, 2023, two people attacked Smith, 27, in the 2400 block of North 17th Street, state prosecutors said. Surveillance cameras captured the killing, and showed one of the men — whom state prosecutors identified as Pridgen — firing multiple shots into Smith’s body before fleeing in a vehicle driven by a third people.
That vehicle, state prosecutors said, had been stolen at gunpoint the day before in the 2500 block of East Monmouth Street, less than four miles away.
The two other murders Pridgen is accused of committing also occurred in 2023 in Philadelphia, state prosecutors said.
In one case, Pridgen is accused of shooting Hassan German, 31, and another man, who survived, on May 24, 2023 at the intersection of North Gratz Street and Susquehanna Avenue in North Philadelphia. The details of the other case were not immediately available on Thursday.
“There are public dangers, and then there is Richard Pridgen — for whom killing, stealing, and harming people is a way of life,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in the news release.
Pridgen has pleaded not guilty in both prior murder cases.
A spokesperson for the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is representing Pridgen in those cases, declined to comment.
In February, Pridgen was convicted in federal court of two carjackings and sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison.
In the carjackings — which also took place in 2023 in Philadelphia — Pridgen robbed two men of their vehicles at gunpoint, federal prosecutors said. Neither man was injured.