The man who fatally shot Philly SWAT Cpl. James O’Connor IV was sentenced to 75 years in prison

The man who fatally shot Philadelphia SWAT Cpl. James O’Connor IV in 2020 while attempting to avoid apprehension for another murder was sentenced Thursday to 75 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sánchez said that Hassan Elliott had committed “horrendous crimes” that left dozens of people, and even the community at-large, wounded.

Elliott’s “conduct — intentional conduct — has caused tremendous harm,” Sánchez said.

Elliott, 26, pleaded guilty earlier this year to murder and racketeering charges, admitting that the killing of O’Connor was just one of a series of crimes he and several other people committed to advance the interests of their violent Frankford-based drug gang, known as SG1700.

For several years before he shot O’Connor, prosecutors said, Elliott and other members of the gang dealt crack and marijuana — and used bloodshed to boost their business. Between 2018 and 2019, prosecutors said, Elliott killed three men and shot nine more people — including several unwitting bystanders — often because he was seeking to settle perceived grudges or avenge purported insults against him or other SG1700 members.

The wave of criminal conduct reached a bleak end in March 2020, when O’Connor and a team of SWAT officers arrived at a Frankford apartment to arrest Elliott on a warrant for one of those earlier homicides. Elliott, knowing he was being pursued by police, grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and began firing through a bedroom door, striking O’Connor in the neck and arm.

O’Connor — a son and father of city police officers — was taken to Temple University Hospital and declared dead not long afterward. Elliott, meanwhile, was taken into custody by O’Connor’s colleagues.

Dozens of O’Connors coworkers on Thursday packed two courtrooms to show their support for him and his relatives. And during the hearing, O’Connor’s daughter and widow testified, telling Sánchez that Elliott had destroyed their sense of peace and safety and has caused them to lose sleep, spend birthdays at the cemetery, and have fears of being shot when they walk up staircases.

“You took something I was not ready to let go of,” Teri O’Connor said to Elliott through tears. “You took away our future”

Elliott’s attorney, Patrick Egan, acknowledged that the case was an “absolute tragedy.” But he said Elliott had an exceptionally difficult upbringing: Born to teenage parents with mental health and substance abuse issues, placed in a group home as a child, and later sent to the now-closed Glen Mills Schools, where Egan said Elliott was sexually assaulted by a guard.

Elliott told Sánchez that he knew his actions were wrong, but that he was exposed to violence from a young age and almost viewed it as normal. He apologized to his victims, calling his actions “messed up,” but said: “This is what’s going on every day where I’m from. This is what happens every day

“Don’t make it right, but for some reason I thought everything I did out there was for the right cause,” he added.

Sánchez did not buy that argument.

“You victimized and terrorized a whole community — and innocent people who had nothing to do with gang activity, who had done no harm to anyone,” he said.

The penalty Sánchez imposed was at the top end of a plea agreement that prosecutors reached earlier this year with Elliott’s attorneys. Both sides had agreed to recommend a prison sentence of between 55 and 75 years.

Still, the penalty was well below what Elliott had faced at one point during his prosecution: As recently as 2023, before Elliott had decided to plead guilty, then-U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said her office was leaving open the possibility of seeking a death sentence.

The shooting of O’Connor occurred early on the morning of March 13, 2020, when SWAT officers went to the 1600 block of Bridge Street to arrest Elliott on a warrant for a murder authorities believed he and another man — Khalif Sears — had committed a year earlier.

As police climbed a flight of stairs toward Elliott’s apartment, he started shooting toward the SWAT team, striking O’Connor.

Elliott was ultimately arrested while O’Connor was taken to the hospital. Authorities also apprehended Sears and two other men in the apartment, which they said was littered with guns and drugs. Elliott, however, was the only person accused of shooting at police that morning.

Within days, the case became engulfed in controversy. Then-U.S. Attorney William McSwain blamed District Attorney Larry Krasner for O’Connor’s death, saying Krasner’s office had let Elliott off the hook a year earlier by dropping a drug case against him. Krasner denied that, saying the fate of the drug case was not significant because his office by then had already approved the more-serious murder warrant.

Months later, McSwain filed federal charges against Elliott and the others in the apartment at the time of the shooting.

And three years after that, McSwain’s successor, Romero, announced an expanded racketeering case against Elliott, Sears, and two other men, accusing them of participating in a string of violent episodes to advance the interests of SG1700.

Beyond the murder of O’Connor, prosecutors said Elliott and Sears killed Kaseem Rogers on Dec. 3, 2018; Tyrone Tyree on March 1, 2019; and Dontae Walker on Aug. 22, 2019.

Two of the murders were over perceived beefs or arguments, prosecutors said, while the shooting of Tyree occurred as Elliott and Sears tried to rob him.

And Elliott shot nine other people who survived, prosecutors said, including several who had nothing to do with Elliott or SG1700 — such as a man who was sitting on his porch smoking a cigar when he was shot 10 times, and a woman driving her car through the neighborhood when Elliott opened fire, mistakenly believing a rival gang member was behind the wheel.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Stram on Thursday read statements from several of those who were shot. One said she is all-but-certain to develop early arthritis in her right hand due to her bullet wound, while the man shot on his porch said he spent 18 months in the hospital after having shots tear through his head and neck.

“I wasn’t in a gang, I wasn’t selling drugs in the wrong place,” the man said in his letter, according to Stram. “I was simply on my porch smoking a cigar when you opened fire and changed my life forever.”

Both Elliott and Sears pleaded guilty in January. Elliott has also since been charged with assaulting another prisoner with a shiv while he was behind bars in a Brooklyn federal detention center.

Elliott was the first of the SG1700 members to be sentenced. Prosecutors have recommended that his codefendant, Sears, face a prison term of 35 to 50 years.

The two other men charged in the racketeering indictment — Kelvin Jimenez and Dominique Parker — were found guilty by a jury in March. And although neither was accused of even being present for O’Connor’s killing, their decision to take their case to trial means they could face the stiffest penalties of all: Each faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars.