The harrowing home invasion and gunpoint robbery Otis Ryans suffered last summer didn’t initially make the news in Philadelphia, likely because no one died or was injured. No gunshots were fired.
Still, when Ryans, 30, speaks of the incident, his voice fills with emotion. He fought back tears at the August 15 news conference where Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced that Marquise Alexander, Ryans’s attacker, had been convicted. Ryans and Alexander had been co-workers. The crime, Ryans said, traumatized him.
Krasner described Alexander, 28, as “a man who just can’t stop robbing people – he just can’t stop robbing them with guns.” He’s the type of criminal defendant who inspired Krasner to start Philadelphia’s first-ever Prolific Gun Offenders Unit. Krasner said he launched the unit this April with $800,000 from the Philadelphia City Council.
The unit’s mission: prosecuting repeat, violent gun offenders, with prior arrests or felony convictions. The lawyers find them when they face new charges for robberies, straw purchasing firearms, manufacturing and distributing ghost guns, and other related gun crimes. In other words, people who are wanted for crimes involving guns that are not specifically homicides.
The unit includes a supervising prosecutor, three assistant district attorneys for adult cases and one for juvenile cases. It does not handle cases involving shootings, Krasner said. The unit, he said, will go after people accused of repeatedly using guns to commit crimes — not people whose only crime is possessing a gun without a carry permit.
The idea behind the new unit, Krasner said, is that a relatively small number of people commit many of the city’s gun crimes. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of people to do a whole lot of crime,” he said. “For people who are illegally possessing firearms and doing it repeatedly … you’re looking at a very dangerous population, and we have to dig in on that small number of people.”
So far, the unit has identified about 110 cases to prosecute, said its supervisor, Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Palmer. The prosecutors also handle bail-revocation hearings and collaborate with the office’s Charging Unit to appeal low cash bail rulings for violent gun offenders.
“These would have previously been handled by the major trials unit – all very accomplished ADAs in their own right. But they have larger caseloads and are a little bit more junior in terms of experience level,” Palmer said. “So really, what we’re focusing on is getting ADAs who have more experience and hopefully a lower caseload so that they can focus more intently on these offenders.”
The Prolific Gun Offenders Unit has emerged as gun crimes are plummeting compared to this time last year. Through August 18, the number of shooting victims is down 38.5 percent, gun robberies are down 41.3 percent, aggravated assaults with guns are down 16.6 percent, and stolen autos are down 40.3 percent, according to the Philadelphia Police Department.
“No level of crime is acceptable to us,” Palmer said.
While the unit’s mission of aggressively prosecuting repeat gun offenders is valid, said Temple University Criminal Justice Assistant Professor Jason Gravel, it would be useful if the unit also had a deterrence component, like a media campaign.
“You’re going to get deterrence through people seeing that people are getting arrested or sentenced for gun crimes,” Gravel said. “But one way to make sure they don’t do it in the first place is to make them aware of the consequences.”
Some criminals may not be swayed by any level of deterrence. On August 16, 2023, Alexander and an accomplice went to Ryans’ home in the city’s East Germantown section, according to the DA’s Office. By that point, Alexander was already on parole for previous armed robberies.While the accomplice held Ryans at gunpoint, Alexander stole his two legally registered guns, his cellphone, and other items.
Alexander robbed two other people at gunpoint on October 1 that year in neighboring Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He was arrested three days later, after Philadelphia Police stopped his car because it matched the description of the car used in the recent robbery.
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Of the two guns stolen from Ryans, just one has been recovered, said Assistant District Attorney Kelsey Gimaro, the prosecutor who handled Alexander’s case.
This August, Alexander pleaded guilty to robbery, conspiracy, multiple gun crimes, and related counts. His sentencing is scheduled for October 18. His accomplice remains at large. “The defendant’s actions are inexcusable, and the commonwealth will ask for a sentence that reflects that,” Gimaro said.
Ryans, who was employed at a grocery store with Alexander, said he is a born-again Christian who did not know Alexander well. The night of the robbery, he said, he let Alexander and his accomplice into his home to take cover from a rainstorm.
Ryans said he and Alexander had talked about collaborating on music projects as a way to earn money and move away from the dangers of Philadelphia. “As he was robbing me, though, I felt even more sorry for you, Marquise, but not in a good way,” Ryans said during the news conference.
“You were willing to put others at risk because of your selfish actions. But you really have no idea what you’ve done to me financially, mentally, emotionally. The damage is already done,” he said. “I’m thankful for you not pulling the trigger.”
The Trace’s reporting in Philadelphia is a part of the Every Voice, Every Vote project and supported as well by the Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the Neubauer Family Foundation, and the William Penn Foundation. You can read more about The Trace’s Philadelphia supporters here, and read our editorial independence policy here.
