Hassan Elliott Killed a Cop He Never Saw: A Crime Case

[0:05] It's six o'clock in the morning, March 13th, 2020, Frankfurt, Philadelphia. [0:12] It's still dark outside. Sunrise is more than an hour away, and a moderate rain is falling over the row houses on Bridge Street. Temperature's in 50s, but in the dark, in the rain, it feels colder. A SWAT team is climbing a narrow staircase inside a two-story row house. Three officers in a tightly packed stack formation. Officer Scott on point, Officer Saba behind him. And next in line, Sergeant James O'Connor. 23-year veteran, 15 years on SWAT. A husband, a father, and a brand-new grandfather. They reach the second floor. There's light bleeding out from under a closed bedroom door, and from behind that door, two voices. Fuck, it's the cops! Yo, it's the fucking cops! [1:19] What happened next took less than 10 seconds. But it ended a life, shattered a family, and exposed a trail of violence that stretched back two years and four murders. Here's what makes this case different from every other officer down story you will ever hear. The man behind that door, Hassan Elliott, had told people exactly what he would do. [1:55] According to the government's sentencing memorandum filed in July of 2025, Elliot had openly discussed with his gang members his plan to shoot police to avoid being arrested. He announced it, and then he did it. Hi, I'm Steve Rode. I've spent 30 years as an investigative writer, tracking financial criminals and years in emergency services as a police dispatcher. Surveillance photographer, and chief pilot for public safety operations. This is true crime cases you haven't heard. And this is a case I've been sitting with for a while. Because the more I learned, the more questions I had. Not just about what happened on that staircase, we know that. But about the two years of killing that led to it. Four people dead Nine separate shootings. [3:02] Rap videos filmed at murder scenes. A kill list written on a prison wall. And at the center of it all, a 21-year-old who had never held a job in his life. If this case speaks to you, do me a favor. Hit subscribe, hit follow, share this episode. Leave a five-star review, because that's how people find stories like this one. [3:35] Before I take you into the violence, I need you to know who James O'Connor was when he was alive. Not a headline, not a badge number, but a person. According to his family and the Officer Down Memorial page, Jim O'Connor came from a family of Philadelphia police officers. His father served four decades with the PPD. His son Jimmy followed him onto the force, and Jimmy's wife also served in the PPD. His daughter Kelsey joined the Air Force as a military police officer. Three generations and one calling. That's not duty, that's identity. That family didn't just serve the city. they were woven into it. [4:31] He married his high school sweetheart, Terry. They'd been together nearly 25 years. Their 25th anniversary would have been the following month. And five months before the mourning on that staircase, O'Connor became a grandfather for the first time. A beautiful little girl named Callie. At his memorial, his son Jimmy described his dad as, and I'm quoting here, a family man and hard worker who loved life and would drop anything to help somebody. [5:12] Former Deputy Commissioner Joe Sullivan said O'Connor died leading his operators. He said Jim was straightforward, honest, and it helped resolve many volatile situations without incident. Fifteen years on SWAT. Not a desk assignment. Fifteen years going through doors. March 12, 2020, the night before he was killed, was Terry's birthday. [5:48] The morning Sgt. O'Connor climbed those stairs, he was serving a homicide arrest warrant. According to court records, the warrant was for two men, Hassan Elliott and Kalief Sears. The charge? The murder of Tyrone Tyree Jr., killed almost exactly one year earlier, March 1st, 2019. And that warrant, that had been issued on March 26th, 2019, it would take 353 days to serve. 352 days during which Elliot remained free. During which he killed two more people. During which he shot at least five others. And during which he filmed rap videos at murder scenes and posted them to the internet. That's the first thing you need to understand about this case. One murder created the warrant. And that warrant put O'Connor on that staircase. And on that staircase, a second murder happened. Two deaths, one chain. And we need to go back to where that chain began. [7:13] According to the superseding RICO indictment filed March 20, 23, in the eastern district of Pennsylvania, SG-1700, also known as L-Block or 1700 Scattergood, was a drug trafficking gang operating in the Frankfurt neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia. Court documents describe them as part of a larger umbrella called DTG, short for the Trapping Gang. [7:47] They sold crack cocaine on the 5300 block of Lesher Street and surrounding blocks. Over time, according to the government's sentencing memorandum, the organization expanded outward to the 1700 block of Scattergood Street, which gave them their name. According to the original indictment, members used Instagram to coordinate drug sales and to wage war on rival gangs, primarily 4,800 Takawana. This wasn't background noise. Social media was infrastructure. Arguments started on Instagram. Scouting happened on Instagram. And murder was bragged about on Instagram. The leadership structure, according to Jimenez Parker trial brief, was layered Kelvin Jimenez known on the block as nip and Dominique Parker Dom, both in their early 30s ran the supply side they provided drugs and weapons to the younger members who worked the corners and did the shooting Dom was directing operations from prison for some of this period. [9:13] Hassan Elliott has joined the organization around 2017. He was roughly 18 years old, and according to the government's sentencing memorandum, he had no work history to speak of. The government's exact words? He spent his life from his teen years until his arrest at age 21, engaged in gang-related criminal behavior. year. His prior criminal record was thin. A juvenile theft adjudication at 16, a guilty plea at 19 for carrying a firearm without a license, a third-degree felony under Pennsylvania law. And that January 2018 conviction made him a felon before he'd ever killed anyone. According to court documents, the gang had a policy. If members encountered opposition gang territory but couldn't find their intended targets... They would shoot anyone present, even people who had nothing to do with any gang, just to send a message they had crossed enemy lines. And that policy would claim innocent lives. [10:38] December 2, 2018, according to the Jimenez-Parker trial brief, A member of the rival 4800 Takawana gang, identified in court documents as DS, sent an Instagram direct message making fun of a rap song by Bilal Mitchell, Walkdown. And that's what started it. An Instagram comment mocking a rap. [11:10] According to the government's trial memorandum that same day that message arrived has screen recorded a youtube tutorial called shooting the mossberg tac 22, and that evening has and walked down filmed selfie videos pointing a gun at the camera in one video according to the government has said if i catch an op i'm gonna kill him, The next day, December 3rd, 2018, the operation moved like a military exercise. According to the government's plea memorandum, NIP and other members drove ahead to the area around Takawana and Harrison streets to scout, confirming the targets were exposed and that cops weren't around. Then walk-down drove Haz to the location. A third member, identified as CA, followed in a chase car. [12:17] Kassim Rogers was 19 years old, and he was standing outside a corner store. According to court documents, Rogers was shot five times in the head, the chest, the back, and the legs. He was pronounced dead at 8.43 that evening. [12:41] Within hours, according to the government's trial memorandum, Has posted to Instagram, Has is MVP of the year. One hour after the murder, he texted someone asking for a new shirt, likely because of gunshot residue on his clothing. Thirteen hours later, he Googled the Fox 29 News article about Roger's murder. And the next day, he and Walkdown posed for a photograph At 1774 Scattergood. [13:13] Street Holding the murder weapons, Two days after that, he screenshotted the candle-lit vigil information For the man he had just killed And then, December 6, he saved the surveillance video of his own crime to his iCloud account. [13:39] He was collecting trophies. And it didn't stop there. According to the government's trial memorandum, on January 25, 2019, at 5 in the morning, Haas and Walkdown returned to destroy Rogers Memorial. While Walkdown was tearing it down, Haas noticed movement inside a parked car nearby. Two people identified in court documents as C.S. and M.H. Were asleep inside and has opened fire. Both were hit. They had nothing to do with anything. They were just sleeping in a car. Then came the sweatshirt. According to the trial memorandum, Roger's friends had made memorial sweatshirts, bearing his photo and his nickname, Glizzy. Walked down, went to Franklin Mills Mall and ordered a counterfeit version using the same photograph, but replaced the tribute with the words, Fuck the Ops. And Haz wore that sweatshirt on camera. [14:58] A 19-year-old was dead because someone mocked a rap song on Instagram. And the people who killed him were wearing his face on their clothes. [15:13] I need you to understand something about what's happening here, because it matters for everything that comes next. According to the original indictment, Members of the organization used mobile phones and social media platforms, particularly Instagram, to discuss, coordinate, and complete their drug trafficking activities. But it went further than that. Instagram wasn't just where they talked business. It was where beefs started, where scouting happened, and where murder was announced beforehand. And celebrated afterward. Haas screen-recorded a YouTube tutorial before the Rogers murder. He saved surveillance footage of his own crime to his personal iCloud. He posted Haas' MVP of the year to Instagram within hours of the killing. And that digital trail wasn't accidental. It was the point. For SG1700, social media was both the cause of the violence and the trophy case. [16:30] And there was a pattern forming. According to the government's sentencing memorandum and plea memorandum, if SG-1700 members entered opposition territory and couldn't find their intended targets, remember what I told you? They would shoot anyone present. Even people with no gang affiliation. And that policy would define what happened next. [17:05] According to the government's plea memorandum and sentencing memorandum, Tyrone Tyree Jr., 33 years old, came to SG-1700 territory on the 5300 block of Duffield Street to buy drugs. His family described him as a happy-go-lucky guy who had turned his life around. He worked at Amazon. He dreamed of being a rapper. He was about to receive his first ever income tax refund. And his family would later tell investigators they believed that refund was the motive. That Haz and Sears saw him as someone carrying money. A man trying to move forward. Walking into the wrong block. On the wrong day. What happened next shows how the organization worked. According to court documents before approaching Tyree, Haz and Khalif Sears, Leaf, 17 years old at the time, called NIP for permission to leave the drug block unattended. They called their boss before murder. [18:24] They approached Tyree in his car, and according to the plea memorandum, they drew weapons. And Tyree reached down. The government's words are, Likely for the gear shift. Three words that contain his entire last moment. He may have just been trying to drive away. They shot him. He was pronounced dead at 12.27 p.m. at Jefferson Toursdale Hospital. [18:58] According to court documents, Haas and Leif fled down alleyways between Brill and Scattergood Streets. They stuffed their handguns inside a barbecue grill in the rear yard of 1775 Scattergood Street, and Leif left his coat hanging on a fence. Inside it, a flip phone, a tube of chapstick, and a pair of headphones. You can see where this is going, right? DNA on the chapstick, the earbuds, and the coat all matched Sears. DNA on the phone matched both Sears and Elliot. it, and officers followed their footprints in the snow directly to the evidence. [19:54] On March 26, 2019, arrest warrants were issued for Elliott and Sears. And Elliott went underground. That warrant? For the murder of Tyrone Tyree Jr.? It would take almost exactly one year to serve. And the man who would serve it was James O'Connor. But what happened during that year, while the warrant waited, is what transforms this from a case into something worse. [20:31] Haz was now wanted for murder, and he didn't hide. He escalated. August 20, 2019, according to the sentencing memorandum, Haz and Dom rode bicycles to Takawana Territory. They found a man identified as R.B. sitting on his front porch on the 1800 block of Fillmore Street, Bicycles in the afternoon They rode up and shot a man sitting on his own porch ten times, According to prosecutors, they believed they'd killed him He survived in the government's words, with extraordinary medical intervention. Ten times! [21:29] Two days later, August 22, 2019, according to the plea memorandum and trial brief, SG-1700 wanted retaliation for the shooting of one of their own members. The problem, they weren't sure which rival gang was responsible, so they defaulted to policy. The plan, according to court documents, was to go to opposition territory, and these are the government's words, shoot anyone present in the opposition territory, even those unaffiliated with the opposition, to communicate that the group was looking for them. [22:16] Dante Walker was 30 years old. He was a neighborhood barber, according to his obituary. He loved the Philadelphia Eagles. He loved music. He loved his family. His memorial service would be held at Kingdom Life Church Ministries. His viewing was at 10 in the morning and service at 11. That August afternoon, he was sweeping the sidewalk near a barber's chair at the corner of Bridge and Hawthorne Streets. He wasn't a gang member. He was not an intended target. According to court documents, Haas, Walkdown, Dom, and a fourth member converged from two directions. Surveillance footage from a building across the street, according to trial documents, shows two hooded figures creeping out of an alleyway and then running toward the intersection, firing. Walker had nothing to do with any of it. He was just sweeping. They shot him. He died. [23:34] The violence kept accelerating. According to the trial memorandum on December 6, 2019, three SG-1700 members shot a man identified as B.C. While he was sleeping in his car in a Takawana territory. Parking lot. Then came December 20th, quarter to four in the morning. According to the government's court documents, a woman identified as RF was driving home from dropping her boyfriend off at work. Five SG-1700 members saw her car and believed it belonged to a rival. It didn't. They fired at least 52 rounds. [24:26] 52 rounds at a woman driving home from saying goodnight to the person she loved. She was struck once in the right hand. She survived. The weapon used was a Zastava PAP M92. It's an AK-style pistol. And that weapon would later be recovered from 1688 Bridge Street. The same room, the same arsenal, One week later on December 27th According to the sentencing memorandum Has fired at a man identified as GT He missed, But the round struck an innocent passerby, R.R. In the stomach as he drove through the intersection R.R. Required emergency surgery and months of recovery He was just driving through, After that shooting, according to the trial memorandum SG-1700 members were upset with Haas Not because he shot an innocent person But because the increased police presence Shut down their drug blocks, Business. That's what they are protecting. Business. [25:55] February 2nd, 2025, months after Walker's murder, the gang returned to the exact intersection where Dante Walker was killed. And according to the Jimenez-Parker trial brief, this time they brought cameras. The video was called Frankfurt Purge, 13 or more SG-1700 members were present Haas was masked He was still wanted for the Tyree murder And he was still free, Dom, who was incarcerated For a separate offense Had coached the filming by phone, According to the trial brief He used industry terminology during the call, telling Haas to get B-roll. According to the court exhibits at trial, Haas rapped, See Me Got Hit, a reference to Kasim Rogers. Me and Walkdown go body for body. Walkdown was Mitchell's street name. Every gun in this bitch got me 20. Those guns were in the same room where O'Connor would die four days later. Another member's verse, according to the same court exhibit, described Walker's murder. [27:24] Yeah, a homie out there sweeping. He fuck around got swept. Walker was the barber. The verse continued, I guess he thought he was a barber for cutting too many fades. [27:41] And then according to the trial brief, Nip found a broom laying near the sidewalk at the exact spot where Walker had been sweeping when he was killed. He picked it up he began to sweep on camera according to the cooperating witness present at the filming it was nips idea they reenacted the last moments of the man they murdered at the place where he died and posted it guess where to YouTube. [28:22] By early 2020, according to the sentencing memorandum, Elliott had openly discussed with SG-1700 members his plan to shoot police to avoid apprehension. He said it out loud. He said it to his own crew. If the cops come for me, I will shoot them. March 12, 2020, the night before, According to the Himes Parker trial brief Haz and Dom were inside 1688 Bridge Street The trap house The drug house, They were in the kitchen wearing masks They were dancing With multiple firearms from the middle bedroom Including a .22 caliber Mossberg rifle, They posted the video to Instagram, It was a response to a rival gang's video called Ready or Not. [29:28] That Mossberg, model 715T, needs a moment of context. According to the original indictment, it was a .22 caliber, semi-automatic rifle, with an obliterated serial number, located with at least 16 rounds. It looks like an AR-style weapon. The silhouette would suggest something fearsome. But a .22LR is the same caliber as a standard .22 pistol. It's a target rifle. What killed Sergeant O'Connor wasn't firepower. It was proximity and a closed door. That rifle would be in Elliott's hands 12 hours later. [30:27] 5.40 in the morning. SWAT Team 1 arrives at 1688 Bridge Street. It's pre-dawn. Moderate rain, 54 degrees. Sunrise won't come for another hour and a half. According to the government's trial documents, officers knocked on the porch door and announced their presence. No response. They knocked on the apartment door and announced again. No response. Officer James Ashford breached the door. The SWAT Team entered and began ascending the narrow staircase in a tightly packed stack formation. According to the trial memo, as they reached the second floor landing, Scott and Saba saw light coming from under the closed middle bedroom door. Two voices from behind it. Fuck, it's the cops! Yo, it's the fucking cops! [31:35] According to the government's plea memorandum as the officers ascended the staircase, Loudly announcing their presence, Elliott retrieved the .22 caliber Mossberg rifle that was laying nearby and began firing at the officers through the closed middle bedroom door. He fired 16 rounds through a closed door at the sound of their voices on the other side. According to the trial memo, O'Connor cried out, I'm hit! I'm hit! A round had struck his left forearm and another entered his torso, millimeters above his body armor. He fell backward down the narrow stairs onto the officers behind him. Officers Norat and Fitzpatrick carried him out. He was rushed to Temple University Hospital. At 6.09 a.m., 29 minutes after the team had arrived, Sergeant James O'Connor was pronounced dead. He was 46 years old. [32:57] According to the government's documents at trial, after the shooting stopped, hushed voices came from behind the bedroom door. One voice said, We're shot. Officer Saba ordered them to come out with hands up. The response, Okay, stop shooting. The door opened. What investigators found inside that room? Approximately 10 feet by 11 feet was a freaking arsenal. According to the government's plea memorandum, nine handguns of various calibers were, in the government's words, littered throughout the room. Not stored, not organized, just scattered across a space the size of a walk-in closet. The full inventory documented in the government's court filings totaled 15 firearms and more than 206 rounds of ammunition. [34:05] Among them, two Polymer 80 Ghost Guns, home assembled, completely untraceable, no serial numbers to trace. A Zastava PAP-M92PV, an AK-style pistol loaded with 21 rounds, the same weapon linked to the December 2019 shooting, where 52 rounds were fired at an innocent woman's car. A Glock 19 with 16 rounds, a Springfield XD45, a Ruger 1911, and hidden inside a pill bottle, a Glock conversion device that turns a semi-automatic into a fully automatic weapon. Four of the 15 firearms had obliterated serial numbers. Two more had no serial numbers at all. They were ghost guns. The Mossberg that killed O'Connor was found concealed under the bed It was the only weapon not in plain view Its magazine was empty, Every round had been fired through that door, According to the trial memo, the room had also contained approximately 30 grams of crack cocaine. [35:24] 442 grams of wheat $130 in cash and six cell phones, Walkdown, who was in the room with Haz Had a seventh phone in his hand as he exited He also had 59 containers of crack concealed on his person. [35:49] Let me stop here for a moment. I've investigated criminals for 30 years, financial criminals mainly. People who plan, who calculate, who think three steps ahead. And what I've learned is that the most dangerous thing a criminal can do is tell you what he's going to do next. You see, most people who make threats don't follow through. But the ones who do, The ones who announce their intentions openly to their own people With no fear of consequences Those are the ones you cannot afford to ignore. [36:30] According to court documents confirmed in his own guilty plea, Hassan Elliott openly discussed shooting police to avoid arrest. He didn't whisper it. He told his crew. And then for 353 days, while a warrant with his name sat unserved, he remained free. And during those 353 days He killed more people He shot at least five others He filmed music videos bragging about the murders he'd already committed, Look, I don't know why it took a year to serve that warrant I do know what happened when they did. [37:26] Hassan Elliott went into federal custody the day he killed Sergeant O'Connor. And according to the government's documents, he never changed. 24 disciplinary infractions in 55 months. According to the trial memorandum, Elliott wrote a letter from prison to Walkdown, his partner in the Rogers murder, and he wrote, You was Kobe and I was Shaq. We held that shirt down when it came to drama It took three years for a Project N-word to die We did it our first year On that block together, LOL LOL, Yeah, LOL. They killed a 19-year-old, and they laughed about it in writing from prison, where every piece of mail is read. [38:25] According to the trial memo, a corrections officer, Lieutenant William Hilty, a 25-year Department of Corrections veteran, and inspected Elliot's single-person cell before Elliot was assigned to it, and the walls were clean. Elliot wrote three names on those walls. Seem Gliz, that was Kasim Rogers. Mugga, that was Dante Walker. O'Connor. He kept a fucking kill list on his prison wall, According to the sentencing memo In August 2024 Four years into his detention, Elliot was involved in a coordinated attack On another inmate At the Federal Detention Center in Brooklyn, He wielded a prison shank His cohort In the government's words buried an ice pick in the target inmate's back. [39:38] His most recent disciplinary infraction, fighting, came on April 7th, 2025, three months before sentencing. Hey, if you're listening to this and it's hitting hard, you're not alone. If this kind of investigative storytelling matters to you, take 10 seconds. Leave a review wherever you're listening. It makes a difference. Thank you. [40:08] The path from arrest to sentencing took more than five years and spanned four different judges. According to the court records, the original seven-count indictment was filed in November of 2020, and it focused on the O'Connor murder and the drug operation. On January 5, 2021, the court made a determination that changed the trajectory of the case because, according to court records, the indictment contained notices of special findings under the federal death penalty statute. The court appointed two capital defense attorneys for Elliott. Standard practice when execution is on the table. This was now a death penalty case with four potential capital counts. [41:05] For the next two and a half years, more than 40 sealed motions were filed, entirely invisible to the public. Capital litigation was happening behind closed doors. Only the judge could see the filings. Then in March 2023, according to the sentencing memo A 31-count superseding RICO indictment was filed Elliott faced 29 of those counts, All four murders were now charged All the shootings, the full drug enterprise Kelvin Jimenez and Dominique Parker were added as defendants, What had begun as an officer down case was now a federal racketeering prosecution encompassing two years of organized violence. [42:07] That summer, the case changed hands again. The judge who had overseen all of it, all those sealed capital motions, had been reassigned. And according to the docket records, three different judges cycled through the case in rapid succession between July and November of 2023. The judge who knew the death penalty history best was gone before sentencing. According to the September 2023 court transcript The third judge assigned Addressed the death penalty question on the record He stated that there appeared to be Four potential capital cases Against the lead defendant And the Department of Justice Had not yet decided Whether to seek execution, And then the judge said something remarkable According to the transcript The judge said, I think the betting odds would be given the current administration That there will not be a death penalty case. [43:23] A federal judge on the record Saying the politics of the sitting administration would likely determine whether a cop killer faced execution. The Biden Department of Justice ultimately did not seek the death penalty. Elliott's capital designation quietly disappeared from the docket, and the case was finally assigned to a fourth judge who would see it through to sentencing. [43:55] One more thing about the prosecution. This case spanned three different United States attorneys. William McSwain filed the original indictment in 2020. Jacqueline Romero oversaw the superseding RICO indictment in 2023. And David Metcalf signed the sentencing memorandum in 2025. Three administrations, three prosecutors, one case. Five years from arrest to sentence And there's a question embedded in that timeline That I can't answer But I can name. [44:39] In January 2018 Nearly a year before his first murder Hassan Elliott pled guilty to carrying a firearm without a license It was a third degree felony He was 19 He was now a convicted felon, and he was back on the street. The following December, he killed Kasim Rogers. Three months later, Tyrone Tyree. Five months after that, Dante Walker. A year after that, James O'Connor. All while wanted for murder for most of that period. Tyree's mother wrote about it According to the Philadelphia Inquirer She published an opinion piece in March 2020 After O'Connor's death With a headline that asked Would Sergeant O'Connor still be alive If authorities had acted sooner Against her son's killer, That question hangs over this entire case, and I don't have an easy answer. [45:54] December 2024, the trial was finally approaching. On December 12th, according to court records, the judge ordered partial sequestration of the jury, and the court viewed the security and influence risk of an SG-1700 gang trial as serious enough to protect the jury. On December 18th, Elliott's motion to exclude the rap video evidence from trial was denied. The Frankfurt Purge video, the night before Instagram post, the Broom reenactment, all of it was coming in. [46:40] Nineteen days before his trial was set to begin on January 15, 2025, Haas pleaded guilty to 25 of the 29 counts against him. The four dismissed counts were all murder in aid of racketeering charges. Kind of redundant under the police structure. Not an acquittal on any murder. Kalief Sears, who had been 17 when he helped kill Tyree, pleaded guilty the same day. The trial would have started February 3rd with the rap videos, with the prison letters, with the kill list on the wall. [47:26] Instead, it ended with a signature. [47:32] Kelvin Jimenez and Dominique Parker did not plea. On March 25, 2025, both were found guilty at trial. [47:46] According to the judgment entered by the judge, the sentence was pronounced. [47:52] 900 months. 75 years in federal prison. And there's no parole. According to the government's sentencing memo, the original sentencing guidelines called for life plus 660 months. The plea agreement had capped the range at 660 to 900 months, and the judge gave him the maximum the deal allowed. According to news reports from the courtroom, Elliot smirked during sentencing. And the judge noted it. The government's sentencing memo described his conduct in a single passage worth hearing. Quote, The defendant showed a callous disregard for the laws of society and the value of human life. He caused irreparable and devastating harm to the families of his murder victims, his shooting victims, and his community. He embarked on a course of horrors that terrorized his neighborhood and left a wake of permanent victimization.", And the final sentence? [49:14] Nobody is entitled to inflict such mayhem. [49:23] I want to come back to the four people who are gone. Kasim Rogers was 19 years old. He died because someone mocked a rap song on Instagram. Tyrone Tyree was 33, an Amazon worker, and his family called him happy-go-lucky. He turned his life around, and he was waiting on his first-ever tax refund. He reached for a gear shift and he was killed for it, Dante Walker was 30 a barber who loved the Philadelphia Eagles and his family and he was sweeping a sidewalk had nothing to do with any gang they shot him because he was there, and Tyree's murder generated a warrant and that warrant put James O'Connor on a staircase one year later, O'Connor, whose wife's birthday was the night before, whose granddaughter was five months old, who came from a family that had been protecting that city for three generations. One Instagram insult, four murders, a chain where each death caused the neck. [50:46] According to the news reports from the sentencing, Terry O'Connor spoke. She had also spoken at the plea hearing six months earlier. Their daughter, Kelsey, addressed Elliot directly. According to reporting from the courtroom, she said, he can't hurt anybody else. [51:10] Sergeant James O'Connor received the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart and the Sergeant Robert Wilson III Medal of Valor all after his death. He was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant that same week. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said his life was nothing shy of heroic. At his memorial procession, according to news accounts, approximately 200 neighbors, officers, and firefighters gathered. His funeral had to be held privately because of COVID restrictions. The pandemic had just begun. The city couldn't give him the public farewell he deserved, but the neighborhood did what it could. Community members placed his badge number 8162 in their windows throughout Frankfurt, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation honored his service his family released a statement it said we will always cherish our memories of our husband father friend and hero. [52:37] There's one more detail from the court records that stays with me. According to the forfeiture motion after RICO prosecution, four murders, years of drug dealing, and nine separate shootings, the total financial assets recovered from Hassan Elliott were zero dollars, not one penny. The only thing forfeited were the guns. His special assessment, $2,500, and restitution was deferred to a later hearing. Four people died, nine people shot, an entire neighborhood terrorized, and the ledger shows zero dollars and a pile of weapons. [53:37] He was born August 14th, 1998. He committed his first murder at 20, his last at 21. He never held a job, and according to court documents, his entire adolescent and adult life was accounted for by gang activity. He's currently 27 years old, and if he serves the full sentence, He'll be in his mid-90s Before he's eligible for release. [54:11] On the wall of his cell He wrote the names of three people he killed Before O'Connor, The corrections officer confirmed The walls were clean before he had arrived, He put those names There himself He wanted to remember Apparently he was proud of it, And one more thing, according to court records on March 20th, 2020, exactly one week after O'Connor was killed at 1688 Bridge Street, a video titled Dear Mama, True Story, was posted from Dom's YouTube account. And it was filmed inside the same building, the same rooms, seven days after a man died there. [55:07] I don't know what Hassan Elliott thinks about at night in federal prison, but I do know what he announced. I know what he did, and I know that four families are living with the consequences of a chain of violence that started with an Instagram insult and ended with a decorated sergeant falling backward down a staircase in the dark to his death. Nobody is entitled to inflict such mayhem, I'm Steve Rode, this has been True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard If this episode meant something to you, subscribe, follow, share it, leave a 5-star review Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, stay subscribed And by all means, stay awesome. [56:08] Yeah. Bye.