A gun swap gone wrong led to a shooting that killed three teens in Lawncrest, prosecutors say

On a rainy April afternoon last year, Philadelphia police were called to a rowhouse on the 5900 block of Palmetto Street and found a sprawling crime scene with the bodies of three teenage boys.

The youngest victim, 14-year-old Salaah Fleming, was in the living room, shot four times. His best friend, 17-year-old Malik Ballard, was collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the house, shot three times. And Khalif Frezghi, 17, also shot, was lying on the front porch. All were dead.

“It was a very tough scene,” Homicide Detective Robert Daly said Tuesday.

The killings were the result of a gun swap gone wrong, Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope said. On the afternoon of April 28, 2023, a group of young men from North Philadelphia were meeting at a house in Lawncrest with a crew from Germantown. The plan was that both sides would bring guns and swap them, Pope said, a common practice among people involved in crime to get rid of “dirty” firearms that had been used in shootings.

The Germantown crew, though, intended to rob the other side of their weapons and cash, Pope said. But something went wrong and shots rang out from both sides. The three teens were killed and a 16-year-old was injured in the gunfire.

In the aftermath, police charged Kyzir Reeves, 19, and Tyree Lennon, 23, with murder, attempted murder, and related crimes. Two additional suspects, Taj Lennon, a cousin to Tyree Lennon, and Kevin Yip, remain at large. All were affiliates, Pope said, of the Germantown-based gang “PNB” that police say orchestrated the “robbery gone wrong.”

During a preliminary hearing Tuesday, Pope — using surveillance video, social media posts, rap song lyrics, and jailhouse calls — laid out Reeves’ and Lennon’s alleged roles in the killings. It was the most detailed look yet at the incident in which more juveniles were shot and killed than any other last year.

“This murder is a part of a long history of PNB members committing crimes for clout, for their own work product and rap songs,” Pope said.

But questions in the case remained Tuesday, including what sparked the first bout of gunfire and who fired the guns. Evidence suggests Frezghi fired the first shots, Pope said, striking the 16-year-old. In response, she said, Fleming shot Frezghi. It’s not yet clear, she said, who fired the shots that killed Fleming and Ballard.

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The surveillance videos that police said showed Lennon and Reeves at the scene were grainy and from something of a far distance — something the defendants’ attorneys said was problematic.

“I was surprised by how little evidence they put on in this prelim,” said Ellis Palividas, Reeves’ lawyer. “How they ID’d those grainy videos is beyond me.”

The home where the shooting unfolded, Pope said, was Tyree Lennon’s. And Instagram messages with a friend the night before the shooting showed how he planned the robbery, she said.

“I was tryna see if u wanted to make some bread,” Lennon told a friend, referring to making money. He went on to say he had “a lick” for someone “tryna buy a gat.” Lick is slang for robbery and gat for gun, a police officer testified.

Then, in a video call just days later with a friend in jail, Pope said, Lennon alluded to being involved when the friend asked him why he had cut his hair and Lennon said, “you know why.” The friend also told Lennon he had seen him on the news.

Paul Dimaio, Lennon’s attorney, said that demonstrated only that the friend had watched the news and had seen Lennon’s mug shot.

Pope said Reeves, who is also known by his rap name, “HopOutBlick,” rapped about the shooting afterward, and played a song in which he and Taj Lennon, known as “Baby Stu,” talked about stealing Fleming’s gun from the scene. When the song was played in court Tuesday, Lennon appeared to sing along.

Palividas and Dimaio said none of the evidence definitively placed their clients at the house or inside the room of the shooting. They said they would file motions to dismiss the case.

“I think this bodes very well for trial,” Palividas said, adding that his client “has cause for optimism after this hearing.”

“They don’t have an ID other than the very officers whose entire purpose is to use their social media actions against them,” he said.

Ultimately, Municipal Court Judge Christine M. Hope held both defendants for court on all charges, allowing the case to head to trial.

Pope said that more evidence is on the way, and that ultimately, it shows how drill rap and social media are integrated into the city’s gangs and drive violence.

“This is what happens when children have guns,” she said. “It becomes a disaster.”