Police ‘buried’ footage that showed a teen didn’t kill his friend at a SEPTA station, lawsuit says

A teenager who faced charges that were later dropped in the killing of his friend, and spent 49 days in jail before video evidence established his innocence, has sued Philadelphia and SEPTA police officers who were involved in his prosecution.

Zaire Wilson, 18, is accusing law enforcement officers of hiding and ignoring evidence showing he did not shoot and kill Tyshaun Welles on a platform at the City Hall station on Jan. 11, 2024.

Welles, 16, was hit in the head and his family decided to take him off life support less than a week later. The Frankford High School sophomore was not the target of the shooting, detectives said.

Wilson and Quadir Humphrey, 20, were arrested the night of the shooting. Police said Wilson pulled out a gun and Humphrey used it to open fire at the group of teens. After Welles died, Wilson was charged with murder and held without bail at the Juvenile Justice Services Center.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Wilson in late February 2024 after prosecutors received surveillance footage from SEPTA.

“The SEPTA surveillance video of the incident, which was not available to the DA’s Office at the time of Wilson’s arrest, shows that he was clearly not involved in the shooting and murder of Welles‚” the office said in a statement.

Law enforcement did not share the footage with prosecutors until Feb. 26, 2024, and the district attorney’s office charged Wilson based on a criminal complaint that was riddled with errors and omissions, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last month in Common Pleas Court.

It is “shocking” that “critical video evidence” was not available to prosecutors at the time of Wilson’s arrest, said Jon Cioschi, a Wiseman, Schwartz, Cioschi & Trama attorney who filed the complaint.

“It is our view that the video footage conclusively establishes Zaire’s innocence, and that no reasonable officer, taking the evidence seriously, would or could have concluded otherwise,” Cioschi said.

The city’s law department declined to comment on active litigation. SEPTA did not respond to a request for comment.

Humphrey pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes, and was sentenced to 17 to 45 years in prison in July.

Wilson and Welles spent the evening of Jan. 11 with a group of friends at LevelUp, a neighborhood organization in West Philadelphia, the complaint says.

Surveillance footage reviewed by The Inquirer shows the group, which included the two teens and Wilson’s teenage brother, arriving at the westbound Market-Frankford Line platform at the City Hall SEPTA station around 9:15 p.m.

As the group waited for the train, the teens chatted and played on the platform as at least four SEPTA officers stood near them.

Wilson playfully chased a girl in an orange shirt to the east end of the platform. He saw Humphrey, who arrived to the platform separately from the teens, and the two chatted and paced together for a few seconds. As Wilson began to walk back toward the group, a train approached, and Humphrey pulled out a gun and opened fire. Wilson ran to the staircase and got off the platform while Humphrey continued to shoot.

The teens dispersed during the pandemonium, but one dropped to the ground. After the shooting ended and Humphrey ran away, officers picked up Welles and took him off the platform.

Moments after the shooting, Wilson returned to the platform. He raised his hands as officers with guns drawn rushed to him, pinned him to the ground, frisked him, and let him go. Wilson then walked down the platform where he met his brother and another teen. The three abruptly ran upstairs.

The footage contradicts police statements that Wilson brandished a gun. That Wilson returned to the scene, where he knew a group of officers were standing, while Humphrey ran away, should have indicated his “consciousness of innocence,” the suit says.

Humphrey himself told staff at the Juvenile Justice Services Center that Wilson had nothing to do with the shooting, according to the lawsuit, and wrote a letter to a judge on Jan. 16, days after the shooting, that said “the person I was arrested and detained with has no connection whatsoever.”

“Rather than follow the facts,” the suit says, “defendants buried them.”