Feds charge man with setting pharmacy ablaze during Philly’s May 2020 racial unrest
Prosecutors say Tyrone Wise, 34, set fire to the SunRay Drugs pharmacy at the corner of Ludlow and 60th Streets, severely damaging the business and multiple apartments in the same building.
A 34-year-old man has been charged with torching a West Philadelphia pharmacy amid the racial injustice protests that roiled the city after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, according to court filings made public Friday.
Prosecutors say Tyrone Wise, 34, of East Germantown, set fire to the SunRay Drugs pharmacy at the corner of Ludlow and 60th Streets, severely damaging the business and multiple apartments in the same building.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and as long as 20 years, should he be convicted on the one count of arson with which he is charged.
The SunRay drugstore was among several West Philadelphia businesses targeted with vandalism and looting in the hours after thousands filled city streets for what started as peaceful demonstrations against police brutality.
The nearby 52nd Street corridor — a prime business district for the neighborhood — was particularly hard hit. Looters there ransacked another SunRay location at 52nd and Walnut Streets, stealing everything from toilet paper to prescription drugs.
The fire at the 60th Street pharmacy forced the business to temporarily close, transfer prescriptions to other locations, or have them delivered directly to customers.
More than a third of the city’s 476 pharmacies reported thefts or damage during the tumult, according to estimates from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Representative from the local SunRay pharmacy chain declined to comment Friday afternoon.
Wise is at least the eighth defendant to be federally prosecuted for setting fires during the 2020 unrest. All of the others, who were accused of setting police cars ablaze during protests outside City Hall, have since been convicted of lesser crimes and sentenced to prison terms of just under a year to more than five years behind bars.
» READ MORE: Feds vowed stiff punishments for George Floyd protest arrests. In most cases, they got less than what they sought.
It was not immediately clear Friday whether Wise had retained an attorney.
He remains in state custody on unrelated assault charges and is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court next week, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.