The man charged with the Aug. 14 shooting that injured six Philadelphia police officers has a long relationship with the government that includes a reduced sentence for cooperation.
Alleged shooter Maurice Hill, 36, was charged with attempted murder and multiple counts of aggravated assault after firing on six law enforcement officers while they were trying to serve a warrant, according to The Appeal.
Hill is accused of barricading himself inside a house and shooting six officers who were serving a drug warrant during an hours-long standoff . The six officers were released after being treated at hospitals, CBS Philadelphia local reported.
Brotha Jah, an author and YouTuber, said he thinks the entire incident was a set-up. Jah questioned how a Black man could shoot six police offices and live.
“If you’ve got a shootout going off with a Black man and police officers, he’s going to die,” Jah said on YouTube. “That would explain why this man lived. This would also explain why those six police officers had no major injuries. This was a paid actor, a federal informant, being paid to snitch on people — being paid to get people locked up. He was paid as an actor to stage this shooting.”
Jah said he has seen job postings for paid crisis actors.
“We got to get gun control laws going,” Jah said. “That’s all this is about.”
Hill’s arrest record dates back to when he was a teenager, but he avoided a conviction in many of the cases because he was a government informant, according to The Appeal.
About a quarter of all people sentenced in federal court get a sentence below the standard guideline minimum. Most of the time, it’s because they agreed to inform on someone else, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency created by Congress in 1984 to reduce sentencing disparities and promote transparency in sentencing.
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Prosecutors often file “substantial-assistance” motions meaning that a defendant helped the government in an investigation or prosecution of another person who committed an offense. In these cases, the court may depart from sentencing guidelines in an action called a “downward departure.”
In 2010, Hill was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The average sentence that year for the offense was more than 75 months in prison.
In a sentencing memo, Hill’s lawyer said that “he has testified before the Grand Jury on two occasions, was willing to testify at trial, and provided information about a shooter that led to an arrest … He has cooperated with the Government and provided information that has and will likely continue to imperil his safety and that of his family.”
The Philadelphia shooting incident quickly turned political with U.S. attorney William McSwain blaming Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for the shootings.
McSwain accused Krasner of promoting a “new culture of disrespect for law enforcement.” A Krasner spokesperson responded, telling The Appeal, “The (district attorney’s office) has no interest in engaging with Bill McSwain’s inappropriate attempts to run for political office from his taxpayer-funded perch in Donald Trump’s DOJ.”
Much of Hill’s federal court record is sealed, so it’s unknown whether a substantial assistance motion was filed in this case, The Appeal noted.
