Defending the Damned by Kevin Davis

Author:Kevin Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2007-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

After a short break, the state called Officer Vincent Barner. Like Green, Barner was African American, a big, beefy and muscular man who filled out his well-cut suit. Magats asked Barner to take the jurors through the events of that night. Barner carefully repeated the story about the fight he saw in the alley, about how he was wearing his badge clipped on the collar of his shirt and was wearing his gun on a belt that was visible outside his pants when he approached the group, making it clear he was a cop. He told Magats that as Officer Green approached the fight in the alley, he yelled, “Stop, police!”

“Why is it important to you as a Chicago police officer that you have your badge out and announce police?” Magats asked.

“It is important, it is really important because you always want to let the people around you know that you are the police and not just someone walking up,” Barner said.

Magats asked Barner to describe the shooting. Barner said he was watching Aloysius standing with his hands in his pockets of his sweatshirt. “I asked the defendant to take his hands out of his pocket.” Aloysius did not respond. Barner repeated the order. “His right hand came straight out of his pocket, but his left hand didn’t come straight out. He pulled and then tugged on his jacket and then he pulled again and that’s when I seen a gun in his hand.” Barner screamed out so his fellow officers could hear. “He’s got a gun!”

Barner began to well up with tears and his voice broke as he recounted how he ran for cover behind a parked car after Aloysius raised his gun. He heard a woman screaming in the backyard. Barner then ran down a dark gangway on the side of the house and heard two shots behind him. He tripped and fell, dropping his gun. He got back up and continued down the gangway, but was stopped by a locked gate. On the other side, he saw Tommie Leach running and yelled for him to stop. “And he turned around and he had a gun in his hand and pointed it in my direction,” Barner said. “I fired for fear of my life that he was going to shoot at me.” The shot missed, and Leach disappeared into the night. Then Barner turned around and found himself face to face with Aloysius in the gangway and a gun pointed at his chest. “When I saw that gun pointed at me I pulled my gun, leveled my gun up and I said I was the police. He said, ‘You the police?’ and he raised the gun from here and he said, ‘You’re the police,’ and he had it like to my face and I tried to fire, but my gun wouldn’t fire and I grabbed his, and I grabbed it…” Barner began crying, put his head down and had to stop to compose himself. “I was so scared. I was scared, man.

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