Baltimore Officer Tommy Sanders drew from his upbringing in the city's Park Heights neighborhood, his six months of police training and his days patrolling the city's "hot spots" to defend himself when he took the stand in his manslaughter trial Wednesday.
Sanders, who is accused of unnecessarily shooting and killing a 27-year-old man who was evading arrest two years ago, told the jury that he was certain that Edward Lamont Hunt made a reaching motion as he ran from Sanders in the Hamilton Park Shopping Center in January 2008.
Otherwise, Sanders said, Hunt would never have taken his last breath in front of a Murry's grocery store after being shot in the back twice by the only bullets Sanders, then a five-year veteran, had ever discharged from his weapon.
"I am damn certain," an emotional Sanders told jurors. "I was damn sure."
Sanders was the first defense witness called by attorney Michael J. Belsky. Sanders described how he became a police officer for the love of his city. He wanted to help people, as he'd helped his three older sisters fight drug addiction. He was going to apply to be a state trooper, but his mother thought the job was too dangerous.
Instead, Sanders said, he wanted to protect the streets of Baltimore — where the sights and sounds of danger were familiar, much like what he felt on the day Edward Hunt eyed him from across the shopping center's parking lot and engaged in other "suspicious activity."
"Most of the time when somebody's watching you, it's for a reason," Sanders said, adding that his assumption was based on training and his "experience growing up in the hood."
When the prosecutor asked him whether going to a shopping center at the height of the afternoon and staring at a uniformed officer was suspicious, Sanders said it depends on "the culture of the people."
He recalled how he approached Hunt and searched him before Hunt assaulted him and broke free. He said Hunt assumed a "fighting stance" twice before running away. As Hunt ran, Sanders said, his right arm stopped moving in a running motion and his elbow raised sharply, which he perceived to be Hunt reaching in his pocket.
He said he had reason to believe Hunt was a drug dealer and possibly armed. "In training you're taught that drugs and guns go together," he said. Sanders said he saw that Hunt was in possession in drugs during his initial searches, but he did not find a gun on Hunt after the shooting.
A grand jury indicted Sanders in July on charges of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, the first Baltimore police officer to be indicted in a duty-related shooting since 1996.
Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda K. Conaway was called as a character witness for Sanders. A friend of Sanders' wife and a neighbor of his family, she called him a "truthful and honest" person.
The prosecution rested its case Wednesday morning after calling 11 witnesses over two days, the majority of whom offered accounts of what they saw at the shopping center. On Wednesday morning, Assistant States' Attorney Lisa Goldberg called three key witnesses, including two experts.
The most heated testimony came when Detective Michael Moran took the stand. He had been in charge of the investigation at the scene.
His testimony revealed that key evidence for the defense, 4.4 grams of marijuana that Sanders said he saw in Hunt's possession and the handcuffs he said he attempted to use during the arrest, were not submitted with the rest of the evidence collected by crime lab technicians from the scene the day Hunt was killed. Those items were submitted later by Sanders' supervisor, Moran said.
Sanders said he had the items with him when he was transported to the homicide unit, and turned them over to an officer when he arrived.
Sanders' supporters, who include former police officers who have been attending the trial, said they thought his testimony went a long way toward demonstrating his passion for the job.
"You can tell he's deeply hurt by this personally. His ambition was to be a police officer all his life," said Charles Washington, a retired police officer who spent 20 years on the force. "This could happen to anybody. I would like to see closure for everyone."
The trial is scheduled to resume Thursday morning.