A Philadelphia judge has dismissed murder charges against a teenage suspect in a 2022 attack on an elderly Black man who was beaten to death with traffic cones.
Judge Barbara McDermott dropped the case against 16-year-old Richard Jones, who was just 14 when 73-year-old James Lambert was viciously attacked and killed nearly two years ago by a group of Black teens in the Brewerytown neighborhood.
At the time, the boy was charged as an adult, as was his alleged accomplice, then-14-year-old Gamara Mosley, but her case was moved to a special court for kids, where she received five years with time served at her home and a juvenile lockup.
Initially, both the boy and girl faced charges of third-degree murder and criminal conspiracy.
During a preliminary hearing last month, Jones’ attorney argued that while he was the first to throw a traffic cone at Lambert, he did not continue to attack the victim and it could not be proved he caused the injuries that led to Lambert’s death.
And while the charges against Mosley had been arbitrated after more than a year in custody, Jones remained in the adult court system, prompting the judge to call off the murder charges he faced.
The District Attorney’s office immediately filed an appeal to reinstate the charges.
Lambert’s family, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the judge’s decision.
The late man’s niece, Tania Stephens, called the ruling a “slap on the wrist.”
“I am not pleased with the decision the courts made, and my family is not pleased as well,” she said, according to KYW Newsradio. “He was the one who took the first cone and he threw the first blow, nonetheless, even though my uncle started to run.”
Stephens, who works as a victim advocate, said Mosley had admitted guilt to certain charges, and that she expressed remorse and apologized to the Lambert family for her role in the crime.
“At least she made an attempt to apologize for her actions and, yes, she was a child, and maybe, yes, part of her had not developed and she was not aware that her actions took the life of my uncle,” Stephens said.
The beating that killed Lambert happened on June 24, 2022, near the corner of 21st Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, where a group of seven teenagers, including four boys and three girls, chased and beat Lambert with traffic cones and other blunt objects after arguing with the man, police said.
The incident was captured on video surveillance, showing the helpless man falling to the ground several times and hitting his head on the pavement as the group of children pounded him from every angle.
The Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled Lambert’s death was caused by blunt-force injuries, and police turned to the public for help identifying the suspects while offering a $20,000 reward.
Several teens were questioned by authorities and released, while the main two suspects eventually turned themselves in and were charged.
The dismissal of the boy’s case was the latest blow for Lambert’s family, who are still seeking justice nearly two years after Lambert’s brutal killing.
Last year in February, the two suspects were granted bail and briefly set free, leading to outrage from Lambert’s family, who filed a protective order and urged the judge to remand the suspects back to custody because they felt threatened.
As a result, Judge McDermott ordered a bail hearing in which the defendants, who had since turned 14 and 15, were jailed again on bonds of $1 million and $850,000, respectively.
