AS THREE young men beaten and kicked by police in a car-stop arrest captured on videotape face a court hearing today, police officials have changed their account of the shooting they say led to the trio’s arrest, reports the Philadelphia Daily News. The day after Fox News showed as many as 15 officers kicking and punching the men after they were pulled from their car, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said narcotics officers on surveillance saw the three suspects and a fourth man emerge from their car and walk toward a group of people. The fourth man fired at the group and then fled on foot, Ramsey said, and police units tracked down the three others who had left in the car.
Now, police say that there was no fourth man and that 19-year-old Pete Hopkins, one of the three who were beaten and arrested, fired the shots that wounded three men on the corner before police pursued the vehicle. The new revelations show how 10 days after the videotaped violence that cast Philadelphia in a bad light around the world first surfaced, investigators are still struggling to explain what happened and why. “So that’s their story now – that’s convenient,” said attorney D. Scott Perrine, who represents Hopkins.