Giovanni's Arrest

Reid told me that a few days after the shooting, "Dwayne was going around telling anybody who would listen to him that he was the one that killed the guy the other day, the one that they showed on the news." In addition, Reid also told me that Dwayne told anyone who was willing to listen to him that he, Carlton , Dajuan, Tyrone and Richard were all in the vicinity when he did it. So, as not to be wrongly implicated in a crime in which he had no participation, Tyrone Mackey did the right thing and initiated contact with the police.

Several years after the shooting, Mr. Mackey told a private investigator (P.I.) how he was not at home when the police phoned to say that they were on their way over to pick him and his brother up. The message was left with Tyrone's then pregnant girlfriend, who in turn phoned him to give him the message. Mackey stated that after his girlfriend phoned him, that he went straight home and phoned Giovanni Reid and the three cousins - Carlton , Dajuan and the confessed killer Dwayne Bennett - to inform them of what was going on. However, he related to the private investigator that outside of his brother, seventeen-year-old Dajuan Bennett was the only one at home when he phoned. Along for the ride to the police station were: the two brothers - Tyrone Mackey and Richard King; Mackey's then pregnant girlfriend, and Dajaun Bennett.*

According to Mr. Mackey, that was how the same three who had been walking ahead of the others on the morning in question, ended up being picked up to go to the police station all at the same time. All three rightfully cooperated by giving statements to homicide detectives. However, they erred when they spoke without an attorney present. Seventeen-year-old Dajuan was not represented by a parent/guardian during questioning. Each expressed to the detectives how they did not want to be wrongly implicated in a crime in which they had no complicity. But their attempt to erase themselves from the picture became a double-edge sword. Their character was publicly assassinated along with the others, and two innocent people ended up losing their freedom (Giovanni Reid and Carlton Bennett).

Giovanni told me that Tyrone caught up with him the day after he spoke to the police. He said that Tyrone mentioned to him how he, Richard and Dajuan had gone to the police station the day before and told homicide detectives about what Dwayne had done. He said that Tyrone then suggested that he turn himself in lest he become wrongly implicated.

Reid told me that before he had the chance to turn himself in the following day, that the police had stormed his home while he was away. He said that the police admonished his mother, Melvina Reid, who was home at the time, that they wanted him to come in for questioning. He said that she accompanied him to the police station the following day. Mrs. Reid told me that she contacted an attorney but that he backed out of representing her son at the last minute. Giovanni Reid also spoke to the homicide detectives without the presence or advice of legal counsel. Little did Giovanni know that after telling homicide detectives his version of events, that he would never again see the light of day. He was placed under arrest for conspiracy to murder.

At the time of his arrest, Giovanni Reid was a high school senior making average grades and working after school for an interior designer. He was arrested on August nineteenth, two weeks after the murder, and detained for nearly a year and a half before his trial commenced. Reid, a then sixteen-year-old youth who had never before been in trouble with the law, was charged as an adult.

He was first remanded to Philadelphia 's Youth Studies Center where he remained until he turned eighteen. He was then sent to the Philadelphia County 's Holmesburg Prison where he remained until his trial ended. After his conviction in January 1993, he was moved to the SCI at Graterford and placed in the hole . Reid told me that officials at the prison told him that they were placing him there because of his tender age. He remained there for two weeks and was then sent to SCI at Camp Hill for two months before being sent back to Graterford, where this time he would be thrown into population. This is where the now thirty-year-old Giovanni Reid resides today, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a crime that he maintains he had no participation in.