HOLLIDAYSBURG — A Blair County jury took about 90 minutes Thursday to convict an Altoona man of attempted murder, aggravated assault and related offenses in an early-morning Dec. 11, 2022, shooting outside a bar in city.

Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and escorted Mark A. Phillips Jr., 39, to the county jail shortly after the jury returned to court with 16 guilty verdicts, ending a three-day trial which Phillips admitted to brandishing his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson M&P ACP. Cover the gun on the windshield. But he could not explain why he fired a bullet into a vehicle with five people in an alley near the Kettle Inn bar.

District Attorney Pete Weeks, who asked the jury to reject Phillips’ claim, referred to the testimony of expert witnesses who said this gun was not capable of firing without the trigger being pulled.

“He put a bullet through that windshield,” Weeks said in closing the case to a jury that saw photos of the vehicle’s windshield shattered by a bullet hole and an exit hole with strands of the driver’s hair.

Weeks claimed that Phillips mistakenly believed that Mykal Cowher — a man who punched Phillips in the mouth and knocked him to the ground in the Kettle Inn parking lot — was the driver of the vehicle.

Cowher, who was in the parking lot with other bar patrons, admitted to hitting Phillips during an argument, then got into an arriving vehicle to give friends a ride home.

Weeks relied on surveillance video to point out that after Phillips got up from the ground and walked around in a circle, he then rushed to his parked truck nearby and grabbed the gun.

“His motive is revenge,” Weeks said.

Phillips told the jury that he feared being attacked by Cowher and his friends and wanted the gun for protection. But Weeks and fellow prosecutor First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith disagreed.

When questioning Phillips testifying, Smith suggested that instead of taking his gun, the frightened Phillips could have simply walked away.

“If you had a truck you could drive?” Smith said facetiously during her cross-examination, then added, “Oh, wait, you did.”

Phillips, in response, testified that he believed Cowher and his friends would be looking for him.

Defense lawyer Kristen Anastasi asked jurors to accept that Phillips did not intend to kill anyone when he “hit the bed of the gun on the windshield.” She described Phillips as scared, frantic and alone in an alley where, after being hit so hard he fell to the ground, he thought there were five people ready to come after him.

“This whole case comes down to what was in Mark’s mind … and Mark thought he was being attacked,” Anastasi said.

Weeks asked the jury to reject that claim based on the surveillance video.

He pointed to Phillips’ lack of reaction to the discharge of the gun, then Phillips reaching through the vehicle’s windows to attack the front and back passengers – including the man he hit three times with the gun. As the driver drove off, surveillance video showed Phillips attempting to pull up on the vehicle.

“All of this simply because he got punched in the mouth and he didn’t like it,” Weeks told jurors.

Smith offered a similar conclusion after the verdicts were handed down.

“He brought a gun to a bar fight … because he has a fragile temper and ego,” she said.

Presiding Judge Wade A. Kagarise revoked Phillips’ bail pending sentencing at a date to be determined after Smith pointed out that Phillips’ convictions could result in a sentence of 20 to 40 years. Anastasi objected, pointing out that Phillips has been out of jail on bond for nearly two years with no violations.

“I’m disappointed that the jury saw the events differently than we did,” the defense attorney said.

Smith also praised Altoona police officers for their work in the case.

After responding to the report of a shooting, she said officers were quick to secure surveillance video and use it to identify those involved.

She praised their subsequent interviews with Phillips, who gave abbreviated versions of what happened and conflicting statements that left officers to conclude it was not an accidental shooting.

“This case was also about divine intervention,” Smith added. “It could easily have been a homicide.”

In addition to the criminal charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault, the jury also convicted Phillips of felonies of possession of an instrument of crime, simple assault and endangering another person.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.