A 15-year-old was held for trial on murder charges in the killing of a West Philly rec center employee

First came the “pop, pop, pop” of the gunshots. Then, Geraldine Fletcher said, she smelled the gunpowder.

And in the fleeting moments that followed, Fletcher recalled Wednesday, she saw a teen running past her as she was cleaning a street near West Philadelphia’s Mill Creek recreation center in September.

The teen appeared to be holding a gun in his pocket, Fletcher said, and as he ran by, he yelled: “They shooting at me!”

It wasn’t until later that Fletcher, 76, would learn the teen was allegedly involved in a shootout that killed her daughter, Tiffany, 41, a rec center employee who was caught in the crossfire.

On Wednesday, Fletcher testified as a witness in a preliminary hearing for the teen, Makie Jones, saying he was the person who ran past her. After the hearing — which also featured video evidence and testimony from detectives — Municipal Court Judge Wendy L. Pew ordered Jones held for trial on counts including murder and firearms violations.

“She didn’t bother nobody. Why would somebody do that?” Fletcher said of her daughter while on the witness stand. “She was loved by a lot of people.”

The hearing marked the latest development in a case that led to widespread outrage. Tiffany Fletcher, a mother of three, had signed up to work at Mill Creek rec center as a pool maintenance employee due to a citywide worker shortage. She agreed to stay on after the summer to continue serving her community; her family’s West Philadelphia home was just a few blocks away.

But on the afternoon of Sept. 9, Fletcher was struck by a stray bullet from the shootout at 47th and Brown Streets, just outside the rec center. Police rushed her to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead later that evening.

Mayor Jim Kenney said he was appalled by the incident and later signed an executive order banning guns at city recreation centers and playgrounds, saying it could provide employees there with “some protection, some peace of mind, some ability to call the authorities when some knucklehead decides they want to bring a gun into a rec center.” The courts quickly struck down the ordinance, saying it improperly conflicted with state law.

In court Wednesday, Homicide Detective Thorsten Lucke presented a compilation of surveillance video showing several people participating in the shootout just outside the recreation center. Tiffany Fletcher could be seen running from the chaos, and Lucke said she collapsed just after she fell out of view of the cameras.

Jones was arrested within minutes and just blocks away — not long after he’d run by Fletcher’s mother. Responding officers had quickly started to run after him, and they found a ghost gun in a nearby trash can.

Jones spoke to investigators the day of the crime, and one of them, Detective Justin Falcone, testified Wednesday that Jones said he’d fired his gun only because he’d been shot at. Falcone disputed that, saying: “It looks to me as though he’s the aggressor in the matter.”

The detective also said that Jones, in his interview, had said he’d been carrying the weapon because he’d been fired upon in Old City about a week earlier. Falcone said he was unable to find any record of that incident. He said Jones denied knowing who his assailants were outside the rec center, and was “wishy-washy” about any other potential motive for the crime.

Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Hojnowski said ballistics tests showed the ghost gun possessed by Jones had fired eight shots during the shootout. More shots from another gun were found nearby; Jones’ public defender, William Reilly, was quick to point out that it remained unclear who fired the shot that fatally struck Fletcher.

Another teen, 17-year-old Malik Flegler, was charged weeks after the crime and is also awaiting trial on crimes including murder. He is accused of being one of the shooters who fired at Jones.

Jones is next due in court for a formal arraignment next month.