Philadelphia police emotionally recall a Tioga standoff that left six shot in one of the department’s darkest days
Maurice Hill, 41, is charged with a litany of offenses including attempted homicide for his role in the nearly eight-hour barricade
On a hazy, mid-August day in 2019, two men crossed paths in a dimly lit North Philadelphia rowhouse.
When a barrage of gunfire “exploded” the property’s drywall, one man escaped by bashing his way out of a window, blood gushing from a gunshot wound just above his ear.
The other man would exit about eight hours later, surrendering to law enforcement and ending one of the worst incidents of violence against police officers in the city’s modern history.
Half a decade after that chaotic scene, a trial is underway in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court that tells the story of the day those two men met; they had little in common, other than that both were new fathers.
Philadelphia Police Officer Shaun Parker was the first member of a strike-team unit that entered the home on the 3700 block of 15th Street where prosecutors say drugs were stashed.
In the kitchen, he encountered Maurice Hill, who prosecutors say used an assault rifle to unleash a hail of gunfire that afternoon that ultimately injured six officers and triggered a massive law enforcement presence that lay siege to the residential block.
After the standoff ended around midnight with a “phony baloney” deal via a phone call between Hill and District Attorney Larry Krasner, prosecutors charged the 41-year-old with more than 70 crimes, including attempted murder, aggravated assault, and assault of a law enforcement officer.
Hill, wearing a pink suit jacket, sat diagonally across the courtroom from Parker as proceedings began in Judge Diana L. Anhalt’s courtroom on Tuesday.
Leading the prosecution is Assistant District Attorney Anthony Voci, a veteran homicide attorney. Hill is represented by Pantellis Palividas, an attorney with the Ellis Legal firm.
For Parker, recounting the experience brought on a wave of heavy emotion.
“The second I looked into the kitchen, I saw a figure, a man there with his arm raised,” Parker said. “I saw a flash. … I knew immediately I was shot in the head.”
Parker’s thoughts during the gunfire were of his two young children, he said, one who had been born two months before. The officer recalled having one thought on his mind as he took cover beneath a window in the dining room, blood gushing onto the wall:
“I just wanted to go home,” he said, breaking into tears that briefly interrupted his testimony.
Other officers also struggled with their recollections.
For Michael Guinter, who entered behind Parker after police bashed in the front door with a battering ram, testifying led to a similar breakdown.
Bullets struck Guinter in both arms, the 18-year department veteran explained as images of each gaping impact wound were shown to the jury on a large video screen.
“Every time my heart beat, blood spilled out of my arms,” Guinter said.
Throughout two days of testimony, there was little dispute between Voci and Palividas that it was Hill who had fired upon officers.
Hill’s team opted to go to trial rather than accept a plea deal that would result in a prison sentence of 40 to 80 years, the proceedings revealed, and much of Palividas’ arguments centered on whether police were justified in entering the home in the first place.
Shortly before 4:30 that afternoon, officers served a search warrant two properties down from the one Hill would barricade himself in, a raid based on the suspicion that drugs were in that home.
Tyric Armstead, a narcotics officer conducting surveillance, testified that he saw a man drag a contractor’s bag from that property to the home sheltering Hill. His sergeant ordered that officers enter and secure the second home until they could obtain a search warrant for it.
Meanwhile, Palividas questioned witnesses about whether officers had announced themselves adequately before breaking down the door and sweeping through the home’s interior. Multiple witnesses testified that they recalled officers announcing themselves.
“When you surprise people, that could trigger a fight-or-flight response,” Palividas said during opening remarks, telling the jury his client had been “firing through the wall” and “could not see who was there … could not hear who was there.”
The trial is set to resume Thursday.