City agrees to pay $3 million to family of 12-year-old boy shot and killed by cop
TJ Siderio was unarmed when he became the youngest person ever fatally shot by a city police officer.
Two months after Thomas “TJ” Siderio would have celebrated his 16th birthday, the city agreed to pay his family a $3 million settlement for his death at the hands of a plainclothes Philadelphia police officer in 2022.
Siderio was unarmed when he became the youngest person ever fatally shot by a city police officer. In July of last year, the officer, Edsaul Mendoza, was sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime.
Siderio’s relatives filed a lawsuit in January 2024 seeking compensation from the city and Mendoza for emotional and economic suffering. The family could not be reached for comment.
“This is a tragic case that never should have happened,” said Michael Budner, a partner at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, one of two law firms that represented the family. “This resolution provides some measure of justice to the family of TJ Siderio for their devastating loss.”
The city’s law department declined to comment.
According to the lawsuit and documents from the prosecution of Mendoza, at about 7:30 p.m. on March 1, 2022, Siderio was riding bikes with a 17-year-old friend near the corner of 18th and Barbara Streets in South Philadelphia when Mendoza and other officers with the department’s South Task Force attempted to stop them.
Based on social media posts, the officers believed that TJ’s friend had a stolen gun. The officers did not activate police lights or call for uniformed backup before pulling up to the boys in an undercover car, the lawsuit says.
Siderio fired one shot at the unmarked patrol car, prosecutors said, shattering the rear passenger-side window and piercing a passenger’s headrest. Shards of glass left one of the officers, Alexander Camacho, with injuries to both eyes.
The boys fled in different directions and Mendoza ran after Siderio.
Mendoza, wearing a tactical vest over street clothing, fired the first shot. Siderio tossed the gun as he ran. Mendoza shot him a second time and Siderio stopped running and fell or dove to the ground.
Siderio was face down and unarmed when Mendoza fired the third and fatal shot into his back.
Siderio — who was 5 feet tall and 111 pounds and who had endured a troubled and chaotic childhood — could be heard moaning, according to video and audio recordings obtained by The Inquirer.
“Yo, I got one down here!” surveillance footage captured Mendoza shouting to Camacho. “Rush a medic. Rush a car.”
Camacho asked if Siderio had been shot.
”He’s shot,” Mendoza replied. “I shot him.”
”Where’s the gun?” Camacho asked.
The gun wasn’t there. Mendoza explained that TJ had thrown it somewhere during the pursuit.
Camacho found the gun about 60 feet west of Siderio’s body, in front of a rowhouse.
Then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw fired Mendoza a week after the shooting, saying he had violated the department’s use-of-force guidelines.
Two months later, District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Mendoza with crimes including first-degree murder, calling the case “very, very disturbing.”
Mendoza ultimately pleaded guilty to third-degree murder — just the fourth time in city history that a police officer has been convicted of a fatal shooting, and the first time for a murder charge.
At his sentencing, Common Pleas Court Judge Diana Anhalt told Mendoza: “I wish you had reacted differently, because what you did was wrong.”
Mendoza told Anhalt that he felt deep anguish and shame for what he did. He said that he acted out of fear for his life when he chased TJ and shot at him but that “the remorse of my actions is in me every single day.”