PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One of two men who pleaded guilty to killing four people five years ago in Frankford — including a Philadelphia SWAT team officer — and wounding nine others has been sentenced to 75 years in prison, as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors.
Hassan Elliott, 26, pleaded guilty to all federal charges after prosecutors say he shot and killed Sgt. James O’Connor during a raid on a home in Frankford on March 13, 2020.
Elliott was a member of the drug trafficking gang known as 1700 Scattergood. O’Connor, a veteran of the force for more than two decades, was attempting to serve him an arrest warrant in connection with a 2019 homicide. He was promoted posthumously to sergeant.
Handcuffed in a bright orange jumpsuit, Elliott made faces after hearing he will be in his nineties when he may see the light of day again and uttered his final words for the public, loud enough for the family of Philadelphia Police Sgt. James O’Connor to hear: “At least I got breath in my body.”
The judge rebuked Elliott's reaction — and told him there’s nothing more egregious and horrific than taking the lives of four people, and shooting nine others, changing their lives forever.
O’Connor’s widow, Teri, told Elliott, “You are a coward. You shot a man through a door,” and called him a “vile human being who has no regard for life.”
Elliott’s attorneys outlined his traumatic childhood: born to drug addicted parents, abandoned, abused and sometimes homeless. Elliott then apologized, and said the violence “didn’t start with [him] and it won’t end with [him].”
But Teri refuted that argument, comparing him to her daughter Kelsey.
“I don’t care how you were brought up, what kind of family you have, you make a choice everyday. And she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, and she joined the U.S. Air Force the same age, and did something — she didn’t pick up a gun,” she said.
Prosecutors read letters by loved ones of the other homicide victims — Tyrone Tyree, Haseem Rogers and Dontea Walker — who weren’t involved in the gang violence.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, who sat through the hearing, said SWAT officers have the riskiest job in the department. “What these men and women do each and every day matters. We know they could lose their lives everyday,” he said.
O’Connor’s family said they were at peace knowing Elliott would remain behind bars, unable to appeal.
“Jim O’Connor is going to live on forever,” said Kelsey O’Connor. “Hassan Elliott is a nobody the rest of his life.”