Updated: 11:40 a.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Jurors are continuing deliberations Friday in the trial of Maurice Hill, the man accused of shooting six Philadelphia police officers during an hours-long standoff in the city’s Nicetown section in August 2019.
The deliberations were briefly disrupted Thursday when, less than an hour into discussions, one juror was dismissed and replaced with an alternate — forcing the panel to restart deliberations from the beginning.
Prosecutors called it the worst police shooting in the city's history and said the evidence against Hill is “overwhelming.” They allege Hill knowingly opened fire on officers during a drug raid at a home near 15th Street and Erie Avenue on Aug. 14, 2019.
Throughout the week-and-a-half-long trial, prosecutors presented testimony from all six officers who were shot, as well as investigators, DNA experts, and ballistics analysts. They said more than 300 shots were fired and tied Hill to firearms and evidence found inside the house, including sealed marijuana bags and drug scales.
They argued Hill was the enforcer behind a drug operation and was not legally allowed to possess firearms. Prosecutors said he knew the people entering the house were police and claimed he was trying to cover up drug activity when he opened fire. In their closing arguments, prosecutors said Hill “tried to assassinate the law.”
The defense said Hill believed police were intruders, and that’s why he fired at them.
Hill took the stand Tuesday and told jurors that in the late afternoon of Aug. 14, 2019, he got home and took a shower. Then, his dog barked, and he immediately heard gunshots. His first thought, he said, was that intruders were trying to rob him at his home near 15th Street and Erie Avenue.
He said he never heard police announce themselves, but he eventually heard a police radio, saw officers on the street, and started to watch the news, realizing it was the police. Hill said officers continued to shoot into the house, so he dove behind the couch and decided not to surrender. Instead, he called his family crying, saying he didn’t know what to do.
His sister told him to turn himself in, but he said he thought police would kill him.
Eventually, the police commissioner at the time, Richard Ross, called Hill and told him to come out, but Hill said, “I don’t trust y’all … you are trying to kill me.”
Hill then said he wanted to talk to his former attorney, Shaka Johnson, who told him he would call District Attorney Larry Krasner to see what they could work out. No deal was ever produced.
Hill said when Johnson got there, he eventually came out of the house, waving a white shirt. He was taken into custody.
In their closing arguments, the defense said prosecutors don’t have enough solid evidence to show Hill knew he was shooting at police, and questioned the validity of at least one officer’s injuries. They also seemed to hint that authorities were hiding splices of Ring camera video, and not the whole 8 or so hours of the standoff.
“Why would Maurice Hill want to kill cops when he just had a baby?”
Prosecutors had their chance to pick apart statements he made during his direct testimony — starting with his 2001 gun conviction which prohibits him from owning or possessing a gun. Hill said he didn’t know he couldn’t have one.
The prosecutor showed the AR-15 rifle with the serial number etched out. Hill said his girlfriend bought it for him and he didn’t know it had an obliterated serial number. Officials said Hill came out with a loaded gun on him when he surrendered, and they found several other firearms in his room.
Prosecutors also brought up a perjury conviction for which he was on probation at the time of the shooting and questioned him on several other inconsistencies.
Those included his address, whether he knew others inside the home, drugs found in his possession — and why he never called police if he thought the people inside the home were intruders.
Hill repeatedly said, “I did not shoot at any police officer at all,” despite ballistic evidence indicating guns in his possession fired bullets into police officers.
Hill’s defense has conceded that Hill did shoot the officers, but they want to zero in on Hill’s frame of mind at the time.
The judge is expected to deliver final instructions to the jury before deliberations begin.