PITTSBURGH — The two teens police say are responsible for a funeral shooting that injured six people — sat in front of a judge on Friday afternoon. The preliminary hearing was moved to the main Allegheny County Courthouse for safety concerns, and nearly a dozen officers secured the inside and outside of the third-floor courtroom.
Inside the courtroom, prosecutors mapped out their case and showed a never-before-seen video from the day of the shooting using multiple camera angles.
Twenty minutes before the shooting - two men can be seen dressed in all black, wearing ski masks, and wearing gloves appear on the screen. According to the prosecution 19-year-old, Shawn Davis had on a puffy jacket and grey sneakers which they later found at his home.
Investigators say the man walking beside him is 17-year-old Hezekiah Nixon who is wearing black shoes matching the ones he still had on when he was arrested.
The two men can be seen walking through an ally behind Pittsburgh Fish and Chicken restaurant - they look at the church and then walk back through the ally and disappear.
But then at 12:02 p.m. starts the two minutes of terror.
The duo reappeared in the alley, with one suspect holding a gun.
This time they cross the street to the side of the church - passing the limo parked outside. That’s when they open fire. In a split screen captured on two of the church’s surveillance cameras; on the left you see the person prosecutors said is Nixon begin to shoot from the side of the church.
Then prosecutors said Davis appears in front of the church shooting directly at a man who he chases around a car.
Investigators revealed today that a man was shot 13 times.
Then the pair run off and head back down the alley.
Back at the church, this camera from the altar reveals what happens as shots were fired. Panic erupts as people attending the funeral rush for safety, one man leaped over the casket of John Hornezes and crawled towards the altar.
“They can not identify Mr. Nixon as one of the shooters at the funeral home on that date and time,” said defense attorney Casey White. “They wanted the judge to speculate based on evidence that they were able to obtain four or five hours after the shooting. They were certainly unable to place Hezekiah at the scene of the crime. So that being said, I’m disappointed with the judge’s decision.”
The teens will return to court for their formal arraignment in March.
The defense argued that despite the video and the suspects’ clothing there is no physical evidence to connect Davis or Nixon to the scene of the crime because the faces of the suspects are never shown.
“Again, the individuals who did the shooting are covered in all-black dress and all black and they are unidentified,” said Casey White, the defense attorney for Nixon.
The judge rejected that claim and ordered them to stand trial.
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