CUMBERLAND — A Frostburg State University basketball player who was shot during an off-campus confrontation that killed one of his teammates said in court Tuesday that he went to the defendant's home that night with the intention of fighting him.
In an hour of testimony that often turned tearful when he recalled the shooting of Brandon Carroll by Tyrone Hall last April, Ellis Hartridge Jr. told the jury that he, Carroll and another man drove to Hall's house on the edge of the campus to "solve a problem" between Hall and Patrice Britton, Hartridge's former live-in girlfriend.
Hall, 21, of Glen Burnie, is accused of killing Carroll, 20, of Waldorf and injuring Hartridge, now 22, of Washington, during a brief but deadly 4 a.m. confrontation on the front porch of the two-story house where Hall lived.
Hall, a former soccer standout at Mount St. Joseph whose career stalled because of academic issues at two other colleges, is on trial facing charges of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. He pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing last month, saying that he acted in self-defense.
Hartridge was the first witness called in a trial, which is expected to run through Friday in Allegany County Circuit Court. Hartridge's testimony came after 31/2 hours of jury selection, which produced a jury of seven men and five women. Only two of the 75 prospective jurors were black; one of them, a middle-aged woman, was picked. Hall and Hartridge are black, as was Carroll.
In his opening statement, Allegany County State's Attorney Michael O. Twigg called April 18 "a day that rocked our small community of Frostburg."
Twigg depicted Hall, sitting a few feet away, as a young man who "was not going to be intimidated" by Hartridge and his friends and who, after getting kicked out of an off-campus party following a physical confrontation with Britton, threatened to "get my shotty" (shotgun) and "get all y'all."
Twigg said that after Britton texted Hartridge and called him about her altercation with Hall, Hartridge called Hall on his cell phone and told him that he wanted to talk about the incident at another location off campus known as "The Projects," where Hartridge and Britton used to live.
Instead, Twigg said, Hall told Hartridge to "[Expletive] that, come to 68 East College Avenue," where he lived and where Carroll was later shot. Carroll later died at Western Maryland Regional Medical Center in Cumberland.
But Hall's attorneys, William Brennan and Will Mitchell, painted a different picture of the events, saying that their client was "scared out of his mind" when he saw Hartridge, Carroll and another man pull up in Carroll's car and park in an alley next to his residence. Mitchell said another car pulled up behind the house and that Hall "thought he was being surrounded."
Mitchell told the jury to keep an "open mind; you can't believe the first thing you hear" from the prosecution. He portrayed Hall as a former soccer star who had intended to play at Frostburg, a young man from a family that includes his father, Tyrone Sr., a 20-year Army veteran, and his mother, Kim, who works for the Department of Juvenile Services.
Brennan produced text messages from that evening between Hartridge and Britton that indicated they were still angry at each other over a relationship that had ended bitterly four months before, sending racially tinged epithets back and forth. Brennan said that Britton had told Hartridge that Hall had slapped her when, in reality, he was later told on the phone by Hall's friends that she had started their skirmish.
"The tragedy of Ellis Hartridge and Brandon Carroll resulted from a lie," Mitchell said.
Brennan went on to repeat a statement Hartridge made to police while in the intensive-care unit of the same hospital where Carroll died. Hartridge said that he "wanted to protect his asset ... and be a man, nothing more" in defending Britton's honor, leading to his confrontation with Hall. He admitted in court that he barely knew Hall before that night, and only heard of some type of relationship Hall had with Britton.
During his cross-examination, Hartridge said that he was "too shocked to move" when he saw Hall follow three of his friends holding a hunting rifle at his side, pointing it down at the ground. Hartridge said tearfully that he asked Hall, "What are you going do, to shoot me?" before Hall picked up the rifle and fired, hitting Hartridge in the hip and, seconds later, shooting Carroll.
"All I wanted to do was fight," said Hartridge, whose testimony had to be stopped a few times after he broke down, sobbing.
Hartridge told the court that he had suffered nerve damage to the side of the body where he was shot, and residual pain in his back, but that he has returned to school and had resumed his basketball career.
Along with trying to tear down Hartridge's testimony, Hall's attorneys attempted to pick holes in the testimony provided by Hartridge's cousin, Robert Davis Jr., who was visiting that weekend from Pittsburgh and accompanied Hartridge and Carroll to Hall's residence.
Brennan tried to refute the testimony of Joel Hunt III, a would-be bounty hunter and security guard who had escorted Hall and another man out of the off-campus party earlier in the evening. Hunt said that after he put Hall in a modified choke hold to get him out of the house where the party was being held, Hall told him "I got my shotty," meaning shotgun. Brennan said that Hall was saying that he was going to ride shotgun in the car he came in, meaning he was going to sit in the front passenger seat.
Britton, a former Frostburg State student who is from Gwynn Oak, was scheduled to testify Tuesday afternoon, according to assistant state's attorney Fred Doss, but court was adjourned before the 21-year-old woman appeared. It is not clear whether the prosecution will call her when the trial resumes Wednesday, or whether she will be called by Hall's attorneys.