Hostile witness says he won’t ‘turn on my brothers’ in 2018 gang-related killing

The arrest of Devin Bryant was six years in the making.

But as he sat in front of a judge for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, all prosecutors had to show were two hostile witnesses and grainy surveillance footage.

Bryant, 26, was arrested earlier this year and charged in the 2018 shooting death of 17-year-old Sandrea Williams in West Philadelphia — a killing that prosecutors say spurred a wave of retaliatory, gang-related shootings across the city that left at least 28 dead within two years.

Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Palmer said Bryant is one of the founding members of a group of men affiliated with 61st and Jefferson Streets. In early 2018, he said, Bryant had gotten into a fight with another crew affiliated with 64th Street, known as 02da4, over a botched marijuana sale. That argument festered and eventually, he said, the groups started dissing each other over social media and a fight nearly erupted in a neighborhood park.

But the feud escalated to the point of no return, Palmer said, when, on the night of May 11, Bryant and his friend Salik White walked to the 300 block of North Simpson Street, where 02da4 members were known to hangout, and opened fire down the block.

Three teenagers were hit, including Williams, who was struck in the neck and back. She died within minutes.

Williams, affectionately known as “Bro Bro,” was not a member of 02da4, but having grown up on the same block, some members saw her like a sister. Her death, Palmer said, crossed a line for the members and ignited a gun battle between the two groups. In the two years that followed, he said, investigators believe at least 66 shootings, including 28 deaths, were linked to the dispute.

Detectives worked for years gathering evidence and securing witnesses to make an arrest in the case. White, the second alleged shooter, remains a fugitive.

But the crux of the case, Palmer said, relies on a collection of witnesses — two of whom testified in court Tuesday against their will.

The first was Xavier Veney, an 02da4 member whom Bryant was accused — but acquitted — of shooting in 2021. Veney, who is serving an eight to 16 year prison sentence for another shooting, was a close friend of Williams, and Bryant is his enemy, Palmer said.

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But as Veney, 25, took to the witness stand Tuesday, he told the judge Bryant was his childhood friend and said he would never testify against him.

“Honestly, I think you’re making a fool of yourself,” Veney told Palmer. “You’re not gonna get me and my friends to turn on each other.”

But, Palmer said, Veney already had. In the weeks after the shooting, Veney gave a statement to homicide detectives, identifying the two shooters in the surveillance footage as Bryant and White, and offered the backstory of the fight the led to the shooting, the prosecutor said.

When asked about this in court Tuesday, Veney said the signature on the witness statement wasn’t his, and that he recalled nothing. The judge eventually dismissed him for being uncooperative.

Next up was Fabian Creary, a friend of Veney’s and fellow 02da4 member. Creary, who is also serving a prison sentence for a shooting, also testified that he remembered none of what he told detectives about the crime back in 2019.

But Palmer played video footage of Creary talking to detectives at the police station, showing that he, too, gave details of the feud and identified Bryant and White.

Bryant’s attorney, Todd Fiore, asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying that surveillance footage did not even capture the shooting, let alone show that Bryant was there. And the witnesses, he said, were uncooperative and provided information entirely based on hearsay.

“There is not one shred of evidence ... that my client was involved in a crime,” he said.

But Municipal Court Judge David H. Conroy said the evidence was just enough for the case to proceed to trial. He held Bryant on all charges.

“The Commonwealth barely met the burden of proof,” Conroy said, telling Palmer: “You’re gonna need a lot more at trial.”

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Williams’ family sighed a breath of relief. It was painful, they said, seeing her friends try to recant information they knew about her death.

“It brings out the worst in you,” Nadia Rhoden, Williams’ aunt, said.

Fiore said he intends to file a motion to dismiss the case.

Palmer said he has other witnesses to bring forward at trial. Now, he said, it’s about getting to that point.

“These cases are tough,” he assured the Williams family. “We just have to take it one hearing at a time.”