A 16-year-old who allegedly fatally shot a man during a crime spree in May that terrorized Camden has been waived to adult court, according to prosecutors.
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Christian Ortiz of Merchantville will appear Friday in Superior Court in Camden. Authorities said he and three others - Aaron Swann and Ashan Thomas, both of Pennsauken, and Raquan Handon of Camden - took turns robbing four randomly chosen people and shot at each of them in May.
Terron L. Phillips, 19, was killed as he walked home from an East Camden gas station after buying a pack of cigarettes. Handon searched Phillips' pockets and took the cigarettes before Ortiz shot Phillips in the chest, authorities said.
Phillips was taken to Cooper University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Authorities said the four defendants - who face murder charges and were ages 16 to 19 at the time of the crimes - found their victims while driving around in an SUV. The shootings occurred between 11:20 p.m. May 17 and 1:30 a.m. the following day.
"They drove around the city of Camden for two hours terrorizing people," Camden County Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah said in court in May, when a judge ordered that Swann, Thomas, and Handon each be held on $2 million bail.
In the first incident, Swann tapped a woman's car window with the barrel of a shotgun and then shot through the windshield as she tried to drive away, prosecutors said. The woman and another person in the vehicle, in the 1400 block of South Eighth Street, were not struck.
Less than an hour later, near Garden and Fremont Avenues, Thomas got out of the SUV with the shotgun and told a man walking outside, "What you got? Give me what you got," before pumping the shotgun and firing at the man, prosecutors said. The man ran away uninjured.
The SUV then went to the United gas station in the 3100 block of River Avenue, where one of the occupants bought a beverage, prosecutors said. As the suspects left in the SUV, Phillips walked into the station and bought cigarettes.
Swann, who drove the SUV - his mother's vehicle - then spotted Phillips leaving and pulled up to him, prosecutors said.
Phillips was shot less than two minutes later, around 1:30 a.m.
mboren@phillynews.com
856-779-3829 @borenmc
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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