Phila. officer held for trial in shooting incident

A Philadelphia police officer accused of firing his gun 13 times to get his girlfriend to let him in the entrance of her Logan apartment building was held for trial Tuesday by a Philadelphia judge.

Pharez Morris, 27, was ordered to stand trial on charges of possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment, and filing false reports after a preliminary hearing before Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni.

Morris, an officer for six years, was arrested in an incident that took place between 5 and 5:30 a.m. Oct. 27 outside the three-story apartment building in the 1400 block of Rockland Street.

Police say Morris was the man a witness saw try repeatedly to get the attention of a tenant in a third-floor apartment.

The witness, Sheree Stallworth, testified that she saw a man throw a can at a third-floor window, stand out front appearing to look at a cellphone, and then fire a gun multiple times into the air.

A woman then came to the door and let the gunman inside, Stallworth said.

As police arrived on the scene, several officers were redirected to the 1100 block of Rockland by an unfounded 911 report of shots fired.

Another witness, Lt. Steven Dolan of the police Internal Affairs unit, testified that Morris told him he fired in the direction of a vacant office building across the street at someone he thought was lurking in the neighborhood.

Defense attorney Michael Coard contended that there was no proof Morris was the gunman. Coard noted that the witness could not identify Morris in court as the gunman. Coard also challenged the validity of Morris' alleged statement to Dolan, saying Morris never signed the statement to affirm its accuracy.

Assistant District Attorney Terri Domsky said physical evidence pointed overwhelmingly at Morris, whom police found inside his girlfriend's third-floor apartment.

Domsky told the judge that ballistic tests on 13 cartridge casings and two bullets found outside the apartment building matched a gun owned by Morris that was found inside a car parked across from the building and registered to Morris.

It was that car that the witness said the gunman came from, Domsky said.

Domsky said the unfounded 911 phone call about shots fired was traced to a cellphone belonging to Morris' girlfriend.