Two brothers, both named Willie Singletary, are arrested in separate crimes
The men, both named Willie Singletary, were arrested Wednesday.
Two brothers bearing the same name were charged with unrelated crimes Thursday, a day after one of them held police at bay in an hours-long standoff and threatened to kill SWAT officers.
On Wednesday, police went to the Plymouth Township home of Willie Singletary III, 29, to arrest his 20-year-old brother, also named Willie Singletary, for what they said was his role in a Christmas Day robbery at a convenience store. The younger Singletary surrendered peacefully and was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit armed robbery and related offenses.
His older brother refused to leave his home when police arrived looking for his brother.
“If y’all are going to come through those doors,” Singletary said, according to authorities, “you’re going to have to kill me.”
He faces charges of attempted aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and terroristic threats after telling officers he was “ready to go to war” and threatening to burn down the building he was hiding in, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
The two are the younger siblings of former Philadelphia Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary, who was called in by police to help calm his brother during the standoff, and eventually got him to surrender.
» READ MORE: Plymouth Township man surrenders after hourslong standoff with police
Prosecutors said Singletary III is a suspect in a 2019 murder in Philadelphia, but they did not elaborate. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department did not return a request for comment.
The officers went to Singletary’s home on Johnson Road to serve a warrant on his younger brother, who they had determined was part of a group of young men who robbed the In-N-Out Food Mart in Bridgeport on Christmas Day, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. During the robbery, which was recorded by the store’s surveillance camera, members of the group held down the clerk and stole $3,000 from the register, two rolls of lottery tickets, and the clerk’s iPhone.
Police later learned that Singletary — who walks with a limp because he has a prosthetic left leg — was the subject of numerous complaints at a Sunoco gas station near his home for unruly behavior, the affidavit said. Surveillance footage from the gas station showed Singletary visiting the business multiple times, including the day after the robbery, when he cashed in three of the stolen lottery tickets, police say.
From that footage, authorities were able to identify Singletary.
The brothers remained at the county jail Thursday, according to court records. There was no indication that either had hired an attorney.