"I was scared, I was in fear"
Those are the words of Gahiji Tshamba, the Baltimore police officer who shot an unarmed Marine a dozen times during a confrontation outside a Mount Vernon nightclub. The officer spoke for the first time during his murder trial.
He said he was being chased, backed into a corner and shot the man as he advaanced on him. An expert witness, a retired city cop who wrote the department's rules of force, testified on behalf of Tshamba, while the judge who is hearing the case without a jury questioned the officer's account.
Read the full story here. The incident started after the Marine, Tyrone Brown, grabbed the buttocks of a woman who was with Tshamba, who'se pictured at left coming out of the courthouse on Wednesday, in a photo by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor.
The officer testified:
"I immediately told him to let her go [and] identified myself as a police officer." He withdrew his weapon — which he said was cradled in a department-approved off-duty holster, and not in his waistband, as others have claimed — and a fight began.
Brown hit Tshamba in his left shoulder, who then retreated, running backward with his eyes and gun still on Brown.
"Mr. Brown continued to come forward. He had his hands outreached as if he was trying to take the weapon out of my hands." As Brown got closer, Tshamba fired. Brown reached for the gun, he said, and tried to sweep Tshamba's feet out from under him.
Brown "physically grabbed ahold of me. He grabbed the gun, and he [put] his other hand around my neck." Meanwhile, the officer kept firing.
"The guy was just way bigger than me. He was overpowering. I believed that he was going to take the weapon [away] from me."
Categories: Courts and the justice system, Downtown, Gahiji Tshamba, Police shootings
Comments
Free Gahiji Tshamba!!!
Posted by: JC | June 9, 2011 11:54 AM
A trained police officer with years of experience was in fear of a man who had his hands up pleading for his life and shot him 12 times in "self defense"? If thats all it takes to scare this "protector of the citizens of Baltimore" he has no business being a police officer. ...Oh yeah... murderers should go to jail for life too.. a unique idea?
Posted by: Jim | June 9, 2011 2:44 PM
@JC.. Sure let's free Tshamba. And let's park him in your apartment for safe keeping. Should he be free or maybe we ought to consider making the citizens of baltimore, a once great city, free of vermin like him. What a unique concept.
Posted by: Jim | June 12, 2011 12:26 PM