PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Four people charged in connection with a deadly mass shooting in Grays Ferry last year that killed three and wounded 10, will go to trial after a judge determined there is enough evidence at a preliminary hearing Thursday.
At the preliminary hearing, prosecutors said the block party in Gray’s Ferry turned deadly when someone mistook the backfiring of a car for a gun shot and friends started firing at each other.
The four people charged in the mass shooting along 1500 block of Etting Street in July of last year are being held for trial on charges of 3rd degree murder, aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person. The judge threw out charges of conspiracy and attempted murder.
Attorneys for defendants Dieve Jardine and Daquan Brown said their clients fired in self defense and that they both had legal gun permits.
Lawyers for defendants Brandon Fischer and Terrell Frazier argued that the Commonwealth failed to link their clients to the shooting.
Troy Harris' son Azir was killed during the mass shooting. He told NBC10 that the night shouldn’t have gone the way it did.
"Friends and associates shouldn't have the potential to hurt each other. It could have been a lot of other things that went on that night — hanging out, having a good time — that's the best way it could have ended."
Azir’s mother Deborah Richardson was also in court and said every day has been hard since her son’s death.
“I go to my son’s resting place every Saturday or even Sunday and it's not a day or a moment inside my home, just try to hold it up, but you can’t,” she told NBC10.
Prosecutors said 145 pieces of ballistic evidence were recovered from the scene by detectives.
The preliminary hearing for two other men charged in the case are scheduled for a later date.