The former Philly police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old T.J. Siderio was sentenced to at least 8 years in prison

Edsaul Mendoza, the former Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Thomas “T.J.” Siderio in South Philadelphia in 2022, was ordered Monday to serve at least eight years in prison.

The penalty, imposed by Common Pleas Court Judge Diana Anhalt, marks the conclusion of a landmark case — one in which Mendoza, who pleaded guilty in April to third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime, became the first officer in Philadelphia history to be convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting.

T.J. was the youngest person ever fatally shot by a city police officer. He was shot in the back by Mendoza, who was working in plainclothes and chased the boy down a street, then fired at him from near point-blank range after he had tossed away a gun he’d used to shoot at the officer’s car.

Anhalt’s full sentence was eight to 20 years in prison. She told Mendoza: “I wish you had reacted differently, because what you did was wrong.”

The crime remains devastating for T.J.’s relatives and friends, many of whom attended Monday’s proceedings and told Anhalt about the impact his death has had on the community. Memories of the boy remain all over the house in which he grew up, including photos showing him in karate gear or preparing for a trip with his mother, Desirae Frame.

“It’s hard,” Frame said during a recent interview in the South Philadelphia home, which she still shares with her mother. “I still don’t really believe it.”

Mendoza also testified Monday, telling Anhalt that he feels deep anguish and shame for what did, saying that he’d acted out of fear for his life when he chased T.J. and shot at him, but that “the remorse of my actions is in me every single day.”

His mother, Gisela Blanco, also read a letter to Anhalt, describing Mendoza as a devoted son, dedicated community servant, and man of faith. Her words caused Mendoza to tear up and dip his head.

Prosecutors said the incident began around 7:30 p.m. on March 1, 2022, when Mendoza and three other plainclothes officers with the department’s South Task Force — Kwaku Sarpong, Robert Cucinelli, and Alexander Camacho — attempted to stop T.J. and a 17-year-old as they were riding their bikes at 18th and Barbara Streets.

The four officers pulled up to the teens that night because they believed the 17-year-old with T.J. was “tangentially connected” to a stolen gun case, according to court records. The four officers were riding in an unmarked car staking out the area after seeing a social media post that showed another teen with a gun in his pants pocket and a second firearm at his feet, prosecutors said.

At a preliminary hearing in October 2022, Sarpong testified that the police unit had not received any information that T.J. or the 17-year-old had guns that night, and that the officers had been looking for the third teen who had posted photos of guns.

But just as the officers hit their emergency lights, prosecutors said, T.J. fired a shot at the car, shattering the rear passenger side window and piercing a passenger’s headrest. Shards of glass injured Camacho, who screamed that he had been shot. Authorities have never said how they believe T.J. got his hands on the firearm in the first place.

The boys then fled and ran in different directions, prosecutors said, and Mendoza chased after T.J. as he ran down Barbara Street toward Moyamensing Avenue.

The boy dropped the gun as Mendoza chased and shot at him, yelling at him to get on the ground, prosecutors said. The boy then tripped or dropped to the ground, and Mendoza approached him and shot him in the back, prosecutors said.

District Attorney Larry Krasner said evidence showed that Mendoza knew T.J. was unarmed when he shot the boy. The gun, Krasner said, was 40 feet away from T.J. at the time, and the boy — who was 5 feet tall and 111 pounds — was lying facedown on the ground behind a pickup truck.

Then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw fired Mendoza a week after the shooting, saying he’d violated the department’s use-of-force guidelines.

Two months after that, Krasner charged Mendoza with crimes including first-degree murder, calling the case “very, very disturbing.”

Then, this spring, as the case proceeded toward trial, Mendoza pleaded guilty to third-degree murder — just the fourth time in city history that a police officer has been convicted of a fatal shooting, and the first time for a murder charge.

In 2022, former police officer Eric Ruch was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter for shooting Dennis Plowden Jr. after a car chase five years earlier. Ruch was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in prison.

Before that, convictions occurred only in 1978, when an officer pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting a 19-year-old after a traffic stop, and in 1870, when an officer was convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting a man in a Society Hill alleyway.

For T.J.’s mother, Frame, Mendoza’s sentence was not nearly enough, offering little comfort after two years without her son. After the hearing, she and other relatives cast the outcome as a “disgrace,” and Frame said she would never be able to forgive Mendoza.

Assistant District Attorney Clarke Beljean, who prosecuted the case, said he understood the family’s frustration, and recognized that anything less than the maximum penalty allowed by law “must feel to them like a compounding of the tragedy.”

Mendoza’s defense attorney, Charles Gibbs, said in court that although Mendoza realized the need for a punishment, he believed that it “should be tempered with mercy.”

Last week, while preparing for Monday’s proceedings, Frame remembered her son as rambunctious, stubborn, and quick to assert himself with his relatives. He loved riding his bike around the neighborhood, she said, but would always come back home, looking for a snack.

Every once in a while, his grandmother, Rachelle DeSalis, said she forgets the boy is gone, catching a flash of someone he thinks is her grandson.

”Still when I go to the store around the corner, I’ll see a kid on the bike and I think it’s … I picture him riding up to me on the bike,” DeSalis said, holding back tears.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the death of T.J. Siderio. He was the youngest person ever fatally shot by a city police officer.