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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > August > 27 > Entry
Western Manor shootings: the jury gets the case
DAYTON — The case against Christopher Beatty-Jones, on trial in the shooting of two security guards, went to the jury Friday morning, Aug. 27.
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael L. Tucker read the instructions to the jurors, then gave them the case at 11:43.
Beatty-Jones is charged with murder, attempted murder, and four counts of felonious assault. Beatty-Jones admitted shooting James C. Locker and William St. Peter, two Moonlight Security guards, on March 30 but claimed he fired in self-defense.
St. Peter, shot in the chest, arm and thumb, testified Tuesday. Locker, shot in the side, died at Miami Valley Hospital on April 3, his 51st birthday.
During her closing argument Friday morning, assistant county prosecutor Michelle Grodner described the guards working at the Western Manor apartments on James H. McGee Boulevard as “two men doing their jobs. These men never had a chance”
Grodner noted that St. Peter was shot twice in the chest, including one shot that was dead center and would have hit his heart or his main blood vessels.
“William St. Peter is alive today because he wore a bullet-proof vest,” Grodner said. “Those were direct hits.”
St. Peter testified Tuesday that he and Locker were investigating a parked truck with lights on. Inside was Jodi Grigsby, a friend of Beatty-Jones, who was waiting for him. He said he moved away from the truck and waited in a different part of the property for Beatty-Jones to return to the truck.
Defense attorney Doug Hess said that the shootings were tragic, but that the guards escalated the situation by not following standard procedures, including making themselves visible and using verbal commands. He said St. Peter hid and came up behind Beatty-Jones as he was returning to the truck.
Hess acknowledged that Beatty-Jones was not cooperative, even telling guards he did not remember his birthday, and combative, but did so in reaction to the guards.
“He was tired of being hassled by these guys,” Hess said.
Beatty-Jones pushed away from the truck when Locker began patting him down, and the guards struggled with him, tried to handcuff him, then pepper sprayed him, heightening the situation significantly, Hess said. When one of them yelled “gun,” Beatty-Jones pulled his weapon and began firing, Hess said.
“He thought he was going to get shot,” Hess said. “He felt that it was going to be his life if he didn’t do something. That’s self-defense.”
Assistant county prosecutor Tracey Ballard Tangeman disagreed, telling the jury that, under the law, the defendant bears the burden of proving a self-defense claim by the preponderance of the evidence, a lesser standard than reasonable doubt.
Tangeman said Beatty-Jones must prove that he wasn’t at fault in starting or escalating the incident, that he had an honest, reasonable belief that he was in imminent danger of death, and that he had no other means to escape besides deadly force. None of the evidence would support any of those elements, Tangeman said.
“The defendant emptied his clip into the bodies of these two men for a pat down he didn’t think he deserved,” she said.
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