Teen gunman sentenced in Easter 2018 South Street shooting that killed Boys’ Latin sophomore

Saying that an Easter 2018 shooting on South Street that killed a Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia High School sophomore had “terrible consequences” for the victim’s family and the community, a judge sentenced a 19-year-old South Philadelphia man Friday to 25 to 50 years in state prison.

Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn Bronson said Zahmir White’s conduct — firing a gun four times in broad daylight on the 800 block of South — endangered his targets as well as other people on the busy street.

White aimed to kill Christopher Elliott, then 18, but ended up fatally shooting Elliott’s friend William Bethel IV while Bethel and Elliott were running away. Jurors at the April trial convicted White of voluntary manslaughter in Bethel’s slaying, and attempted murder for trying to shoot Elliott, and gun offenses.

Bronson on Friday noted that Bethel was a “young 16-year-old doing all the right things” who was killed “for absolutely no reason.”

Bethel’s mother, Williesha Robinson-Bethel, told the judge that she and her husband taught their son that “education was the most important thing in life” and to “never stand on street corners.”

“My son did not deserve this,” she said, noting that he never got into a street fight.

At Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, doctors were crying and trying to save her son “while he was fighting for his life,” his mother recalled. He died two days after the shooting.

The mother said she recalled that White’s supporters “celebrated” after the verdict, saying White “was the GOAT,” meaning “greatest of all time.”

“How many GOATs do we need murdering innocent children?” she asked.

Assistant District Attorney Adam Geer described Bethel as “a special young man” and said White did not stop shooting until he hit someone.

Evidence in the April trial indicated that the shooting grew out of disputes between two groups of South Philadelphia teens. Bethel had moved with his family to Roxborough years earlier but was with two South Philly friends and a cousin on Easter 2018. After buying sneakers, Bethel and one of the friends went into a storefront massage parlor to get chair massages while his cousin and Elliott stayed outside.

White happened to walk by then with a friend. Words of “What’s up?” that meant “let’s fight” or “trouble” were passed between the groups. White testified in his own defense, claiming that Elliott had a gun in his book bag and saying he shot in self-defense. He also said he had been shot at, but not hit, two weeks earlier, then saw that one of Elliott’s friends had mocked him on Instagram.

The jury foreman, interviewed four days after the verdict, said jurors had been deliberating between third-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, and agreed on the latter partly as a compromise. White didn’t appear to have initiated the encounter but had an unreasonable belief that his life was in danger, said the foreman, who asked that his name not be published.

White’s aunt Yvette Morales told the judge that White had been shot when he was 13. “Somebody needs to do something for these black and brown boys,” she said. “They’re dying. If they’re not dying, they’re locking them up.”

White’s mother, Yolanda Green, said her son had never been jailed before the Easter shooting. “I’m sorry that this happened, but I want everyone to know that’s not my son,” she said.

White apologized to the victim’s family and said, “I did not intend to take a life that day. My actions were foolish.”

Defense attorney Billy Ciancaglini described the shooting as “one really stupid incident that does not define who Zahmir White is.”

But Bronson countered that the shooting went “far beyond the norm." He said he received letters from South Street merchants who said the shooting had a “lasting negative impact.”

After the hearing, the victim’s mother said she had started the Will Be Foundation in memory of her son to give young people opportunities to speak about gun violence.