Three men shown in a video being beaten by city police officers after a vehicle chase were ordered to stand trial Thursday on attempted murder charges for a triple shooting earlier that night.
Municipal Judge Nazario Jimenez Jr. ruled after hearing testimony from one shooting victim and four police officers — three involved in the chase on May 5 and one who said he found the gun weeks later that allegedly was tossed from the getaway car.
Defense lawyers suggested that officers followed the wrong vehicle, moved in and out of pursuit, and arrested the wrong men.
Unless these (police) cars have wings and play leapfrog, I don't understand how this went down, said lawyer D. Scott Perrine, who represents Pete Hopkins.
But officers testified that, collectively, they never lost contact with the suspects' car.
The defendants' outraged families loudly protested the judge's ruling inside the high-security courtroom, shouting They lied! and No Justice, No Peace!
The three men's violent arrest was videotaped by a TV news helicopter. It showed officers beating and kicking Brian Hall, 23; Dwayne Dyches, 25; and Hopkins, 19.
No criminal charges have been filed against the officers, and their conduct was not part of Thursday's preliminary hearing in the attempted murder case.
Mayor Michael Nutter called the police stop 67 seconds of seeming chaos out on the streets of Philadelphia. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said, We have to be better.
The arrests came at a tense time in the city. A Philadelphia officer had been killed two days earlier and authorities were still searching for one of the suspects. The families of Hall, Dyches and Hopkins believe that the officers thought that fugitive was among them.
Two weeks later, Ramsey fired four officers, disciplined four others and pledged to retrain the entire department in the use of force.
Jimenez also denied a prosecution motion to raise the $100,000 bail for Hall, the alleged getaway driver. Hopkins, the accused gunman, and Dyches remain in jail.
The three men are due in court Aug. 7 for an arraignment. The shooting victims were all released from the hospital within a few days.
