Prosecutor presents case against accused killer of three

In early July, the needle on the city's homicide dial jumped.

The reason was Justin Mackie, who is 19 and has a tattoo of a .38-caliber revolver on his forehead.

In statements to police, Mackie has confessed to killing three people over nine days this summer in separate attacks - all while on the run in the shooting of a cabdriver.

Mackie and his older brother, Tevin Hammond, had bragged to friends that they would not go down without a fight.

On July 22, the crime spree ended in a daytime shootout with FBI agents outside an East Mount Airy apartment building. The firefight left Mackie with bullet wounds to his neck, back, and shoulder, and his older brother dead.

The brothers had long juvenile records and were in custody as recently as this spring, according to law enforcement sources. Mackie walked away from a halfway house and a bench warrant was issued June 6.

The casual carnage attributed to Mackie typifies many Philadelphia murders.

But Mackie's frenzy of violence - and the danger he posed to law enforcement - stunned veteran homicide prosecutors.

"Even in Philadelphia, it's a shocking amount of violence," said Assistant District Attorney Brendan O'Malley, who presented the case against Mackie during a court hearing Wednesday.

The cabdriver, William T. Carney III, took the stand first. At times, the 53-year-old stared straight at Mackie, who sat at the defendant's table, resting his head on his hands.

Carney said that he picked up Mackie and another man near Germantown and Chelten Avenues around 1:30 a.m. June 14 and drove them a short distance.

Mackie's companion stuck a 9mm gun to Carney's right temple from the backseat, he said.

Carney grabbed the barrel and struggled with the gunman.

Mackie got out of the cab and tried to open the driver's door, but it was locked. Carney drove away and the gunman fired, striking him in the elbow.

In his confession, Mackie said he told his accomplice not to kill Carney because he was worried that his fingerprints were on the car.

Mackie searched Internet news sites to see if Carney was dead. He told police he often combed the news after his crimes. "Checking his work" was how one officer put it.

At the hearing, O'Malley called Detective Hank Glenn to read Mackie's confession.

Mackie, who told police his street name was "Bang Bang," described the slayings from his hospital bed two days after the shootout.

He killed Carlos Barnes, he said, inside the 51-year-old's North Philadelphia boardinghouse on July 9 while buying a shotgun.

"He handed the shotgun to me, and he went and turned the TV off, and I shot him in the face," he told police.

Six days later, he shot Tyrone Hayes five times in an ambush in the courtyard of the Blumberg Apartments. He told Glenn that he thought Hayes might have been planning to shoot him over a dispute.

"He tried to shoot back, but he shot into the ground twice," Mackie told police.

He watched from the window of an 18th-floor apartment as police picked up Hayes' body.

Three days after that, on July 18, he shot his friend Otif Wright, 20, in a house where Mackie, Hammond, and Wright were staying. He thought Wright had set his brother up for a robbery.

In the living room, Mackie told Wright to go upstairs to retrieve a hoodie for him. Putting it on, he headed for the door, but turned one final time.

"I turned and shot Tif in the face. He drops to the ground, and I shot him two more times," he told police.

Common Pleas Court Judge Scott O'Keeffe held Mackie for trial on all charges in all cases.

Mackie also faces potential state or federal charges from the shootout, O'Malley said.

No officers were wounded in Mackie's capture, but he told police that he wished he had more ammunition - that he would have kept firing "until the magazine was empty."