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Saideen Lewis, 16, was just walking on his block at midnight July 11, 2010 with an individual whom Khaleef Ransom, then 20, had a beef with over drug-dealing territory. However, the man was able to escape, so Ransom gunned down the teen.
Ransom “stood on him and said something like, ‘S… ain’t sweet’ and spit on his dead body,” Assistant District Attorney Deborah Nixon said last week.
Ransom, 22, of Sharon Hill, who was arrested Jan. 19, ’11, was convicted of murder, carrying firearms in public and possession of an instrument of crime, according to court records. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Ransom and the intended target were fighting over who had the right to sell marijuana on a certain part of Marston Street in Grays Ferry, Nixon said.
“The shooter and one of his friends start talking to a group of guys, so [Ransom] flashes his gun and brags, ‘I always stay strapped,’” Nixon said.
That friend testified for the District Attorney’s Office as did another man who had asked Ransom if he had any weed on him to sell prior to the gunfire. That witness recalled an angry look on Ransom’s face prior to the shooting.
“He crept and kind of did a sneak attack,” Nixon said. “This wasn’t like a provoked encounter.”
The intended victim may have seen Ransom coming and was able to escape unscathed, but Ransom instead shot Lewis four times in the back and once in the leg.
“He went behind some unsuspecting young man and just blazed him,” Nixon said.
In order for one of the witnesses to show up to court to testify, he had to be arrested and taken there, Nixon said.
“It’s tragic because one of the witnesses, in fact, both of the witnesses that testified expressed an extreme amount of fear of retaliation and so the jury came back very quickly,” Nixon said of the deliberations that took about an hour. “What I was so proud of was the Philadelphia community recognized and stood up for this idea against this anti-snitching.
“… We were able to make a difference. We were able to put a dangerous offender away for life.”
Contact Managing Editor Amanda L. Snyder at asnyder@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
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