An alleged dispute between Pierce and 20-year-old Donald Lindsey boiled over onto the streets at 5:20 p.m. on August 4, as Lindsey rode into Pierce's neighborhood on a bicycle.
Police say gunfire erupted between the two. 29 rounds were fired with none hitting their intended targets.
However, a stray shot did hit 4-year-old Brandon Thompson in the head, killing him as he ran on the sidewalk along Norris Street.
Brandon was Pierce's nephew.
"It's a very delicate situation, our nephew, our brother," Brandon's uncle Tom Thompson said. Relatives say Pierce and Lindsey began feuding when Pierce intervened on behalf of a woman he believed Lindsey had struck.
Lindsey was arrested in Philadelphia the day after Brandon was shot and is charged with murder. He is now being held in Camden County on $1 million bail.
Pierce's brothers tell Action News when Brandon was killed, his uncle was fleeing gunfire, not firing shots. They are not angry with him. The family is working to keep anger out of the equation as they seek justice.
"If we keep on fighting every situation with anger, it's only going to be more people dead, whether kids or not. So we've got to take a different approach. That's what we're trying to do," Thompson said.
