Alleged shooter in Shop & Save altercation held for trial
7-year-old injured in shootout
CHESTER » A city man has been held over for trial on all charges including three counts of attempted murder for a Sept. 16 shootout that sent a 7-year-old girl to the hospital.
Breon Cobb-Cooper, 23, is also facing six counts of aggravated assault, two counts of reckless endangerment and firearms offenses. He remains in custody at the county jail in Concord pending $500,000 cash bail.
Senior Magisterial District Judge Thomas Lacey heard testimony from Chester Detectives Brian Pot and Ryan Stewart Wednesday, and viewed surveillance footage from the Shop & Save at 1516 West Ninth St. where the shooting occurred.
Pot identified CobbCooper from video inside the store about 8:18 p.m. Cobb-Cooper is seen walking outside the store from an external camera angle about two minutes later when another person fires two shots at him in the parking lot, according to testimony.
Cobb-Cooper is allegedly then seen drawing his own handgun and returning fire at the fleeing gunman, shooting about 12 times. Additional shots rang out from off-screen as Cobb-Cooper retreated back to the store.
The shooting took place as a red car occupied by a mother and her victim child was in the parking lot, according to Pot. Stewart told Deputy District
Attorney Matt Krouse that records from the Chester Crozer Medical Center Emergency Room indicate the child was struck three times.
Stewart testified to a ballistics report that indicated there were 32 shell casings collected from three different unidentified 9mm handguns that day. Two matching casings found in the parking lot are believed to be from the initial shooter and another 12 are believed to be from the alleged return fire from Cobb-Cooper. Eleven of the shells attributed to Cobb-Cooper were found in the parking lot and one was found inside the car, Stewart said. The remaining casings were found outside the parking lot, he said.
No firearms have been recovered in the case and the other two shooters remain at large.
Defense attorney Baltazar Rubio, representing Cobb-Cooper with attorney Arik Ben-Ari, noted in cross examining Pot that the video outside the store appeared to show his client actually shooting over the red car as he moved to its right-rear quarter panel and that there did not appear to be any windows blown out or other damage to the vehicle as Cobb-Cooper was shooting.
“Is it not fair to say then, given the trajectory of — presumably — my client’s firearm, that he didn’t hit anyone in the vehicle?” asked Rubio.
“It appears not, yes,” replied Pot.
Stewart also conceded it was possible that someone else shot into the car as CobbCooper was fleeing, and that he did not have any indication from the ballistics report that the bullets that struck the child came from the front of the vehicle, where Cobb-Cooper was initially standing.
Rubio moved to dismiss the case, arguing that his client was ambushed by two people lying in wait for him outside the store and that he shot back in self-defense. He also argued the commonwealth failed to present any intent to harm the victim or that Cobb-Cooper was even the person who shot her.
Krouse said the legal theory of “transferred intent” applies here, in which a defendant can be held to account for someone else being injured or killed even if they were not the intended target of a shooting, and that CobbCooper had the ability to retreat after the first two shots were fired, but instead decided to pull out his own gun and empty the clip at his initial would-be assailant, advancing as he shot.
“He kept firing even after the threat was gone, and he kept going and shot across the street and endangered (the victim),” said Krouse. “And (that) ended up being the foreseeable result of the 7-year-old getting shot and having three gunshot wounds.”
Rubio rebutted that the threat was not gone after the initial two shots, as evidenced by the third shooter returning fire, and said it was obvious the attempted homicide was against his client.
Lacey found the commonwealth had made a prima facie case on all counts, however, and set formal arraignment for Nov. 24 at the County Courthouse in Media.
“He kept firing even after the threat was gone, and he kept going and shot across the street and endangered (the victim). And (that) ended up being the foreseeable result of the 7-year-old getting shot and having three gunshot wounds.”
— Deputy District Attorney Matt Krouse