Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has announced charges of first- and third-degree murder against former Officer Enchaul Mendoza in the March 1 shooting of Thomas T. Jay Sinterio. Police say the young man first shot at an insignificant police car, injuring one of the four plainclothes police officers inside. Mendoza, 26, was also charged with intentional homicide and other charges, according to a large jury presentation that was not sealed on Monday. He was suspended from his job on March 8 with the intention of firing. Court records show Mendoza surrendered on Sunday and was denied bail, a rare treatment for former law enforcement officers facing charges. A spokesman for the Brotherhood of Police Stoa 5 said the union planned to provide a lawyer for the officer. Court records show that the ombudsman’s office represented Mendoza at the hearing for his release on Monday. The ombudsman’s office declined to comment on the case.
Case details unsealed
New details of the shooting were revealed in the jury’s unsealed documents Monday, including that Siderio had dropped a gun about 12 meters from where he was shot and that the young man had fallen to the ground, either stumbling or obeying orders to descend. Krasner said the officer crossed two parked cars and, from a distance of about half a car, shot the fatal from a sidewalk seat behind the young man. Krasner said much of the evidence was based on a video that has not been released but was presented to the jury. According to documents from the Grand Jury, prosecutors created a composite video from two cameras, one that recorded clear visuals of the foot and the other that recorded a different angle of view, but caught sound from the shot. “It’s certain that (Sinterio) had stopped running and was probably surrendering … and they were essentially snouts on the sidewalk,” Krasner said, adding that the young man was in a pushing position looking back at the officer. Krasner called the whole pursuit “tactically inappropriate” and said the video was “annoying to watch”, although when pressed he declined to describe the shooting beyond saying it was clear to him that there was evidence to support it. a first-degree murder charge. There is no indication that the race was a factor in Siderio’s shot, which was white. Police said the four plainclothes officers were in an unmarked car on the night of March 1, looking for a teenager they wanted to interview about a weapons search. They saw two young men, Siderios and an anonymous 17-year-old, and maneuvered their car around the square and climbed next to them to make a stop. Prosecutors said Monday that almost at the same time that police turned on the red and blue lights, a shot came from the front passenger window and ricocheted around the car. Prosecutors said it was not clear from the video if the boy knew it was a police vehicle when he fired, but the investigation is ongoing. A police officer was treated for eye and face injuries caused by broken glass.
The officer knew the young man was unarmed, the DA said
Mendoza and another officer on the passenger side came out and fired one shot each. Mendoza then chased Siderio to the square, shooting twice and hitting the boy once in the back by what prosecutors say was “relatively close.” Krasner said Mendoza immediately told another officer that Sinterio had thrown his gun back, signaling to prosecutors that he knew the boy was unarmed. He said the video also showed the officer slowing down and changing his approach and that he was able to see Siderios lying on the ground when he fired the fatal shot. Police located a firearm that was reported to have been stolen and noted in the days following the shooting that it was loaded with another bullet into the cabin. A lawyer representing Siderio’s father in a lawsuit against the city and the officer did not comment. Mary Siderio, the boy’s great-grandmother, told KYW-TV that she was happy with the news, but is still “soggy” about the situation. “I can not sleep. None of us can sleep. It is horrible.” The court document also notes a handful of contradictions in Mendoza’s story that his boy pointed a gun before firing the last two shots and that he was standing in the street when he shot the fatal, instead of almost over the Siderio on the sidewalk. It also raises questions about whether police officers started a curfew against the two boys because they were riding their bikes the wrong way in a one-way street to talk to them about the gun search. He notes that neither was the purpose of this research. Unmarked cars and plainclothes police are supposed to stop traffic only in dangerous conditions, according to the department’s instructions. “It is definitely a situation that could have had a very different outcome if there had been a marked police car,” Krasner said, postponing questions about the behavior of the task force officers to the police commissioner.
