Cops cleared in New Year's shooting death

The West Philadelphia block that Lamont Dade and Jonathan DeWilliams called home was a bomb waiting to explode.

Dade and DeWilliams were gun-blasting, teenage drug thugs who made 59th Street near Dunlap their personal "shooting gallery" and made neighbors their anxious hostages, a resident wrote just before Christmas 2006 in an anonymous letter to authorities.

"I have no doubt Lamont Dade will ring in the New Year with a number of shots from his piece," the resident warned. "And who knows what Jonathan DeWilliams will add to the mix?"

The letter proved tragically prophetic.

Nine days after it was mailed, more than a dozen men went on a shooting rampage on 59th Street that began as a thuggish celebration of New Year's and ended as a chaotic shootout between cops and hoods that left one man dead.

Yesterday, after 22 months of investigation, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham cleared the police officer whose bullet killed Bryan Jones in a decision that infuriated the 20-year-old's relatives, who contend that Jones was unarmed and uninvolved in the gunfire.

"It's all a cover-up," said Jones' mom, Gloria Jones, her voice brimming with anger. "Bryan was not involved in none of that. He did not have no gun. The police shot an innocent bystander. The autopsy said it was 'homicide' and that's what it was."

But as the Jones family railed, Abraham explained her decision in an 80-minute news conference that had her fuming about everything from thugs masquerading as angels to the easy availability of illegal guns and uncooperative witnesses.

"This was not a celebration of New Year's but a celebration of violence," Abraham thundered. "These men were not revelers. These were thugs and criminals."

Residents of the tidy block lived under siege with Dade, now 19, and DeWilliams, now 21, as their neighbors, Abraham contended. The men lived in adjacent rowhouses, frequently shooting out of their windows at cars, the sky and everything in between.

Besides the anonymous letter-writer, at least one other neighbor had complained about neighborhood gunplay, filing a police report on Dec. 28, 2006, after discovering that someone had shot up his 1998 Mercedes Benz.

The violence that left Jones dead began more than an hour before midnight on New Year's Eve 2006, Abraham said. Men partying in Dade's and DeWilliams' homes began shooting guns into the sky before 11 p.m., residents later told police.

Someone finally called 9-1-1 just after midnight over the roar of gunfire.

Police arrived within three minutes and found several gunmen outside, Abraham said. Police ordered them to drop their weapons, but the men instead scattered, with some escaping over the rooftops as others sprinted into nearby rowhouses and alleys, she said.

Block resident Isadore Bradley said that he was asleep in a back bedroom when one of the thugs crashed through a second-floor window in the front of his house. The hoodlum ran down the steps and disappeared through the cellar door, dropping a live bullet in Bradley's living room on his way out.

"It's scary around here," said Bradley, a 70-year-old custodian, who has lived on the block for nearly three decades.

As the pistol-packing punks fled, they fired at the officers, prompting the cops to draw their weapons as well, Abraham said.

Officer Stephen Szczepkowski chased three men into an alley, where one drew a gun before ducking into a home, Abraham said. When the second man - Jones - appeared to reach for his waistband, Szczepkowski fired twice, hitting him once in the temple, she said.

Mortally wounded, Jones collapsed, as the chaos of the shootout continued around him. The third man fleeing - Jones' 14-year-old nephew - kept running and escaped.

Investigators later found that although Jones didn't have a weapon on him, he had gunpowder residue on his underwear, indicating that he had earlier jammed a recently fired gun into his waistband. Police also found a .38-caliber revolver with laser sighting that witnesses said Jones was known to carry, on the roof, along with four other guns, Abraham said.

Investigators determined that at least nine men had fired more than 200 rounds from at least 14 guns, Abraham said.

Jones was one of the gunmen, Abraham said.

"Mr. Jones was not an innocent bystander," she added. "I am sorry that he lost his life . . . [but] these were his friends. . . . Mr. Jones came to this house not to pick up his nephew but to bring guns for the shooting party."

Investigators found that most of the nine guns confiscated had been reported stolen, were straw-purchased or otherwise untraceable, Abraham added. One pistol had been stolen years ago from a Pennsylvania state trooper.

Attorney Bruce Ginsburg, who filed a civil lawsuit against the city on behalf of Jones' family in July, likened Abraham's news conference to a "spin fest" in which she offered "recycled excuses" to explain why cops had executed an unarmed man with no criminal record and no history of violence.

Jones' family maintains that he had been working on his computer at home, on Haddington Street near 57th, when, about 11:35 p.m., he realized that his 14-year-old nephew was not home and drove to go get him.

At the time, Jones' nephew was playing video games with a young friend inside the home where police say DeWilliams lived.

As Jones and his nephew left via the back door, they heard shots coming from the front of the house next door.

Jones and his nephew were trying to get safely to Jones' car when police shot him, according to the civil lawsuit.

"He was shot half a block away, in the head, unarmed," Ginsburg said. "He posed no threat to anyone."

Ginsburg said that he believes that investigators "coerced" witnesses into giving bogus statements that connected Jones to guns at the party.

"Some people may have caved in under extreme pressure from police to say anything to get out of jail," Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg said that he did not know what to make of the alleged gunpowder residue on Jones' underwear. "That's news to me," he said.

With the investigation closed, Ginsburg said that the civil suit can move forward and that the District Attorney's Office must turn over all documents in the case.

"We will vigorously, vigorously pursue each piece of evidence," Ginsburg said.

The nine suspects that investigators identified haven't been charged in the mayhem, only because officers - hampered by the overnight darkness, the panicked commotion, an ivy-covered tree obscuring the rooftop gunmen and a streetlight that illuminated the cops but not the dark-garbed thugs - couldn't see their attackers' faces, Abraham said.

Still, seven of the nine suspects subsequently have been jailed on unrelated crimes - including two murders, a nonfatal shooting and numerous drug and gun offenses, Abraham said.

Dade stands accused of killing Devon English, 19, of Overbrook, on Sept. 22, 2006, as English sat in a car in West Philadelphia.

"These are bad guys," Abraham said. "It is extremely fortunate that four or five officers were not killed that night."

Abraham defended the lengthy investigation, saying that her office handled 42 police-involved fatal shootings in 2006 and 2007.

Probes into about eight of those cases still are pending, she added.

"I'd rather be right than quick," she said.

Abraham yesterday also cleared Officer Michael Ferrari in the July 29, 2007, shooting death of Julio Sylvester Rivera, 20, in North Philadelphia.

Rivera was arguing with and assaulting his ex-girlfriend, who had a protection order against him for past abuse, in a car on 5th Street near Clearfield when the woman leapt from the car and flagged down Ferrari's patrol car, Abraham said.

Rivera ignored Ferrari's commands to surrender and instead brandished a gun and crawled behind a car, Abraham said.

Ferrari fired twice at Rivera, just as Rivera blasted himself once in his own chest, Abraham said.

Abraham said that Rivera was a known drug dealer who had told his ex-girlfriend he would not be taken alive. *