We first noted Zaakir McClendon in August of 2025, when he was finally arrested for the 2022 murder of Nicolas Elizalde and 2023 murder of Nafis Betrand-Hill. I had to use the mugshot of young Mr McClendon, tweeted by Steve Keeley, because the newspaper declined to publish it. The neck tattoo means automatically guilty. It’s a bit hard to read, but it appears to be “NIMB” or “NLMB”, the first of which could possibly be a bad abbreviation for “numbskull.”

We understand: The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t like to publish photos of accused criminals, because to do so might prejudice the cases against them, and such photos might follow an acquitted man many years into the future. But what about when the accused criminal is actually convicted?

At 17, he killed a 14-year-old outside Roxborough High — and then killed again. He faces decades in prison.

Zaakir McClendon, 21, was sentenced Friday for his role in killing Nicolas Elizalde, 14, and Nafis Betrand-Hill, 16.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, September 11, 2026 | 5:26 PM EDT

A 21-year-old man was ordered to spend decades in prison for killing two teens in 2022 and 2023 — including firing dozens of bullets outside Roxborough High School in a shooting that left a 14-year-old dead and four other teens seriously wounded.

Following an emotional sentencing hearing Friday, Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O’Keefe ordered Zaakir McClendon to serve 40 to 80 years in prison for his part in the shootings that killed Nicolas Elizalde and Nafis Betrand-Hill seven months apart.

McClendon’s streak of violence began when he was 17. First, on Sept. 27, 2022, he and five others drove to Roxborough High School looking to shoot a teen who McClendon believed had hurt a young woman he was close to, said Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski.

They parked their dark green Ford Explorer outside the school’s football field, and as dozens of kids walked toward the locker room, McClendon and four others fired more than 60 shots in all directions toward the players.

Mr McClendon has already served slightly over a year behind bars, so, in theory, his minimum sentence will be up when he is sixty years old. There is no automatic sentence reduction for good behavior in prison, so Mr McClendon would ordinarily not even be considered for parole until he has served the remaining 39 years. But 39 years from now, Messrs Elizalde and Betrand-Hill will still be dead.

Mr McClendon could have been convicted of either First- or Second-Degree Murder; a First-degree Murder conviction would result in a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, as would a Second-Degree Murder conviction in which the killer is the one who killed the victim, and was not just part of a crime resulting in death. But the city’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, allowed Mr McClendon to plead guilty to Third-Degree Murder, thus giving him an eventual chance to get out of prison.

Reporter Ellie Rushing described Mr McClendon as having a “small frame,” so it’s very possible that the words of Leroy Jethro Gibbs will apply: “Believe me, son, you will not do well in prison.”