S. Philly man gets 40-80 years in gang shootout; girl, 3, died

In a prison term a judge called "a gift," a South Philadelphia man pleaded guilty Tuesday and was sentenced to 40 to 80 years for a bloody 2014 sidewalk shootout that wounded three people and killed a 3-year-old girl, who was on a front porch getting her hair braided.

"There is no other way to describe, other than carnage, what you inflicted on that block that night," Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott told Brandon Ruffin.

And carnage was what the witnesses described, in terms that the passage of 22 months had not dimmed.

"Don't nobody tell you how it feels. When you actually witness this, it's horrible," sobbed Chelsey Moseley Evans.

On Aug. 1, 2014, Evans' sister, Sherita Dickens, was seated on her front porch in the 1500 block of South Etting Street in Grays Ferry, braiding the hair of neighbor Tynirah Borum, when gunfire erupted.

Dickens was wounded in an arm and the girl in her lap was shot in the chest.

"We don't know what's really going on," Evans told the judge in a victim-impact statement. "We don't know where the bullets are going to hit - they don't have names on them."

Eleanor Rice lovingly described Tynirah, her first grandchild, as smart and funny, a girl who loved to sing and be outside.

"I miss my baby, I miss my baby," Rice told Ruffin.

Ruffin, 24, pleaded guilty on what was to have been the first day of his trial. A jury of 12 had been chosen, and sat in a jury room off the courtroom as Assistant District Attorneys Gwenn Cujdik and Deborah Watson-Stokes and defense lawyer Michael E. Wallace announced the plea agreement.

In exchange for the 40 to 80 years in prison, Ruffin pleaded guilty to nine counts including third-degree murder, conspiracy, attempted murder, and aggravated assault.

"The commonwealth has given you a gift," McDermott said. "It's up to you how you use it. You could be released in your 60s."

Ruffin said little before sentencing, even when the judge asked whether he had anything to say to survivors.

"I did want to say I'm sorry, but it's not going to change the facts," Ruffin said.

Cujdik said Ruffin and Michael Thomas, then 24, belonged to rival corner gangs in Grays Ferry. About 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2014, as neighbors prepared for a weekend block party, Thomas was outside on Etting. A bicycle rode up, with Ruffin on the handlebars and another man, Douglas Woods, then 22, pedaling.

Words were exchanged and escalated until a police car approached. Thomas started walking away, but Ruffin opened fire with a 9mm pistol, hitting Thomas in the back of the head, wounding Dickens, and killing the girl.

A third man, Richard Henner, then 21, was hit in a leg by a bullet that shattered both bones. Cujdik said Ruffin approached and pointed the pistol at Henner's head, then pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed.

Woods, Ruffin's accomplice, pleaded guilty earlier Tuesday to third-degree murder and seven other charges. Woods' plea, however, did not include an agreed-on sentence, and he will be sentenced Aug. 15.

Cujdik said the shootings have had a continuing impact. Thomas survived with memory loss and a seizure disorder, she said, and Henner's leg is held together with pins and rods that cause continuing pain.

The Etting Street neighbors are no more. The Moseley family was relocated because of fear of retaliation, Cujdik said, and Thomas no longer lives in Pennsylvania.

"Why ever can't you get along?" asked Vandell Moseley, the mother of Dickens and Evans. "We all live in the same two or three blocks and you don't get along."

The judge agreed, telling Ruffin: "This was your extended family, whether you know that or not. These are the same people who saw you grow up."

jslobodzian@phillynews.com

215-854-2985 @joeslobo

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