Pubdate: Tue, 28 Sep 2004
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
Copyright: 2004 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Jason Riley

SECOND OFFICER SAYS HE THOUGHT ABOUT SHOOTING AT DRUG SUSPECT

Partner Testifies In Mattingly Trial

Louisville Metro Police Detective Matthew Thomerson testified
yesterday that he thought "very seriously" about shooting at Michael
Newby after the teenager broke free from a struggle with another
officer on Jan. 3 and began to run.

Thomerson said that as Newby maneuvered between vehicles, away from
him and his partner, former Detective McKenzie Mattingly, he
repeatedly looked back, and at one point faced them.

"I could see his face," Thomerson told a Jefferson Circuit Court jury
yesterday during the sixth day of Mattingly's trial on charges of
murder and wanton endangerment in the fatal shooting of Newby, 19.

"Once he turned and faced both of us," Thomerson said, Mattingly fired
"within seconds."

Asked by prosecutors why he did not shoot at Newby, Thomerson
testified that he considered it, but "at no point did I see a weapon
or see him make an aggressive movement other than when he was down on
the ground and probably already been shot."

Thomerson added, however, that he could only see Newby from his chest
up and could not see his hands.

Also yesterday, a state medical examiner testified that it is possible
that Newby was turning when he was shot - even though the bullets were
all in his back.

Defense attorney Steve Schroering has said that Mattingly thought that
he had been shot with his weapon during the earlier struggle with
Newby and believed that Newby also may have been carrying a gun.

Thomerson said yesterday that, after Newby was shot and pinned by
arriving officers, he tried to get his right hand into his waistband -
where a gun later was found. But Thomerson said that no one told him
that Newby had a gun before the shooting.

In other testimony yesterday, Scott Doyle, a firearms examiner in the
state police laboratory in Jefferson County, said Newby's gun was not
fired the night he was shot. Doyle also said that, at the request of
Mattingly's defense, he test-fired a gun like Mattingly's 12 times in
three seconds. Also testifying yesterday were two people who were with
Newby the night of the shooting and who said they saw him and another
person try to rob Mattingly.

In opening statements to the jury last week, prosecutors said
Mattingly made fatal mistakes that led him to shoot Newby in the back
as he was running away.

Defense lawyers contend that Mattingly was fighting for his life with
an armed drug dealer who, with three other people, had just robbed the
detective during an undercover drug buy.

Thomerson said yesterday that he was the first officer to arrive at
Mattingly's truck, just moments after hearing his partner say that he
had been robbed.

Thomerson drove to Mattingly's vehicle and saw him struggling with
Newby, "fighting over something," he testified.

After a shot was fired, either by Mattingly or Newby, the two men
broke apart and Newby began to run in between two vehicles, turning
his head to look back at the officers two or three times, Thomerson
said.

"He was still focusing on where we were," Thomerson
said.

And when Newby rounded a vehicle in front of a liquor and food store,
he turned "toward both of us," Thomerson said.

Thomerson said both he and Mattingly had their weapons trained on
Newby; he said he was behind Mattingly's truck, and Mattingly was
moving in between his truck and the vehicle near Newby.

Within moments of Newby turning to face the men, Mattingly fired the
shots, Thomerson said.

Newby slumped to a sitting position, Thomerson said, and other
officers rushed in.

Just after the shooting, Mattingly "seemed very upset about what had
happened," Thomerson testified, telling jurors that Mattingly was on
the verge of tears. "... He said, `That guy tried to kill me.'"

A 15-year-old juvenile who witnessed the attempted drug deal testified
yesterday that the detective grabbed Newby by the arm when Newby
reached into Mattingly's vehicle to take back his drugs.

Another man at the scene testified that he and Newby both asked
Mattingly if he was a police officer, and when Mattingly said he
wasn't, that they tried to sell him cocaine. The juvenile said that a
third man, Ismail Shabazz, grabbed Mattingly's money and ran.

The juvenile also ran and said that, when he heard a gunshot, he
looked back and saw Mattingly firing his weapon.

A state medical examiner, Barbara Weakley-Jones, testified yesterday
that, based on the angle of the bullets, Newby was either bending down
when he was shot or Mattingly was pointing his gun at an upward angle
during the shooting.

Weakley-Jones said that two of the three bullets could have caused the
fatal wounds, but that Newby could have lived long enough to struggle
with officers. There was no way to tell where Newby's hands were when
he was shot, she said.

The prosecution is expected to rest its case tomorrow, and then
Mattingly is expected to testify.
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