The trial of the Baltimore police officer charged with fatally shooting an unarmed Marine continues today. Here is some new information from The Sun's court reporter, Tricia Bishop:
Chantay Kangalee complicated three days of work by prosecutors Tuesday morning when she took the stand as a reluctant witness for her brother's killer, Baltimore police Officer Gahiji Tshamba, and testified to a scenario that contradicted the state's carefully built murder case.
Kangalee, the first defense witness called, said Tshamba pulled a gun on her brother, Tyrone Brown, outside a back entrance to Mount Vernon's Red Maple lounge in the early morning of June 5, 2010, confirming what's been said in court so far. But she added that Brown pushed the off-duty officer and steadily advanced — hands out — toward Tshamba, who was backing up the entire time with his gun drawn.
The two men were about three feet apart when Tshamba, 37, fired, his back to an alleyway trash container, unloading his service weapon into Brown, who struggled to push the Glock away, Kangalee said.
The testimony flipped the places of Brown and Tshamba, putting the officer — a much smaller man, standing 5 feet, 8 inches tall to Brown's 6 foot 2 — in a physically defensive position with no place to go. Other witnesses had earlier testified that it was Brown, 32, who was in the vulnerable position.
Kangalee firmly implied that her brother was the victim, however, despite their physical placement. Tshamba aggressively waved his gun, even as he backed up, she said, and purposely baited Brown, a Marine veteran, who had offended the officer by grabbing a woman's buttocks moments before their confrontation.
"Do it again, do it again," Tshamba dared Brown before backing up, Kangalee said, telling her brother to "get his [expletive] on the ground." Brown moved to shield his sister and several other women standing in the area, and eventually advanced on Tshamba, saying, "Dude, just calm down, calm down, let me talk to you," Kangalee said.
He turned to tell his sister to back up, and when he whipped back to face Tshamba, the officer fired. Brown didn't fall until the last bullet was spent, reaching a hand out to his sister, she said, before he dropped.
Kangalee was expected to be called as a witness for the prosecution, but Assistant State's Attorney Kevin Wiggins rested his case Monday without asking her to testify. Instead, she became the first witness for the defense, rigidly answering questions from Tshamba's attorney, while refusing to look directly at the defendant.
