The Hassan Elliot case finally comes to a close

We have previously reported on the murder of Philadelphia Police Corporal James O’Connor IV by Hassan Elliot, a career criminal even by the age of 21, who could have been behind bars at the time but the city’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, who was just renominated by the Democrats for a third term letting criminals loose, let him slide on probation violations which could have kept him behind bars when he was already in custody.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, Corporal O’Connor and other members of the SWAT team were trying to arrest Mr Elliot, then 21, and Khalif Sears, 18, for a murder and robbery the previous March, when Mr Elliot started firing through the door.

Of course, the city’s police officers knew all about Let ’em Loose Larry, and blocked his attempt to visit Cpl O’Connor’s family at the hospital. They were not going to allow him to make a show of sympathy for an officer that his policies had gotten killed.

Well, now the case has come to closure:

The man who fatally shot Philly SWAT Cpl. James O’Connor IV was sentenced to 75 years in prison

Hassan Elliott shot O’Connor in 2020 while trying to avoid apprehension for another murder.

by Chris Palmer | Wednesday, July 23, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

Hassan Elliot, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department.

The man who fatally shot Philadelphia SWAT Cpl. James O’Connor IV in 2020 while attempting to avoid apprehension for another homicide was sentenced Thursday to 75 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sánchez said that Hassan Elliott had committed “horrendous crimes” that left dozens of people, and even the community at-large, wounded.

Elliott’s “conduct — intentional conduct — has caused tremendous harm,” Sánchez said.

Elliott, 26, pleaded guilty earlier this year to murder and racketeering charges, admitting that the killing of O’Connor was just one of a series of crimes he and several other people committed to advance the interests of their violent Frankford-based drug gang, known as SG1700.

Naturally, The Philadelphia Inquirer did not print Mr Elliot’s mugshot in the article referenced above, but did so in March of 2020, just after Elizabeth “Lisa” Hughes became Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of the newspaper, but perhaps before she decided to make the Inky an “antiracist news organization.”

The sentence handed down by Judge Sanchez was at the top end of the 55 to 75 year sentence plea deal worked out between federal prosecutors and Mr Elliot’s attorneys. Reporter Chris Palmer noted that in 2023, then-U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said her office was considering whether to seek the death penalty.

Not that it would have mattered, since President Biden, or his staff with the autopen, commuted all but three death sentences, just before he left office.

With a 75-year sentence, and given credit for time served, Mr Elliot would not complete his sentence until 2095, when he would be 94 years old. Current federal law requires federal prisoners not be eligible for parole until they have completed 85% of their sentences, which would be 63 years and nine months, which would have him released at the end of 2084, when he would be 83 years old. However, Mr Elliot has already assaulted another prisoner in the Brooklyn federal detention center, so it’s not like a good conduct early parole is something which he is likely to receive.

Mr Elliot’s attorneys argued for a sentence at the lower end of the range:

Elliott’s attorney, Patrick Egan, acknowledged that the case was an “absolute tragedy.” But he said Elliott had an exceptionally difficult upbringing: born to teenage parents with mental health and substance abuse issues, placed in a group home as a child, and later sent to the now-closed Glen Mills Schools, where Egan said Elliott was sexually assaulted by a guard.

Elliott told Sánchez that he knew his actions were wrong, but that he was exposed to violence from a young age and almost viewed it as normal. He apologized to his victims, calling his actions “messed up,” but said: “This is what’s going on every day where I’m from. This is what happens every day.”

“Don’t make it right, but for some reason I thought everything I did out there was for the right cause,” he added.

Oh, boo hoo hoo!

But, I am happy that Mr Elliot got the sentence he did. A capital sentence would have meant an interminable number of appeals, dragging the story on and on and on, for Cpl O’Connor’s family. Larry Krasner, who would just as likely have agreed to a Voluntary Manslaughter and seven-year sentence plea bargain had he been prosecuting it, can’t seek a sentence reduction since it was a federal case. It’s time to lock him up and forget about him for the rest of his miserable life.