Lawyer says alleged killer was peacemaker

He says client tried to ease party dispute before teen was shot

Lawyers for two men accused of killing teenager Brandon Musgrave and injuring two others at a 2010 student party say the evidence shows the other’s client is the shooter.

And one of them suggests his client, Joshua Warner, was actually a peacemaker for trying to diffuse matters minutes before drawing his gun and shooting.

The arguments are being made as the jury trial for Warner and Tyrone Chambers — which began in late October — is expected to wrap up by next week.

Chambers, 31, and Warner, 29, are charged with second-degree murder in Musgrave’s death, and with two counts each of aggravated assault on the students seriously injured but who survived.

The jury has been told this is a second trial for Chambers and Warner after the result of their first trial was overturned on appeal.

Chambers admitted in this trial to taking a loaded handgun, hidden in a black sock, to the March 12, 2010 party at 53 Dundurn St. S., and to pointing it during a dispute over music that Chambers did not like and wanted changed.

But he said he did not shoot — and that the fired revolver police later found belonged to Warner.

Musgrave, a Hamilton guest at the party hosted by Columbia International College students, was shot and killed while trying to calm the music dispute between Chambers and Wesley Adi, the person playing the music, court has heard.

Musgrave, 18, was shot in the head. Kauner Chinambu, also 18 at the time, was shot in the chest and wrist. Ted Tsibu-Darkou, then 20, was shot in the shoulder.

Earlier this week, Chambers’ lawyer Christopher Hicks argued that there is no evidence that Chambers fired a shot that night.

But on Thursday, Warner’s lawyer Devin Bains reminded jury members of witnesses who said Chambers shot first, and that they saw Chambers shoot Musgrave and Chinambu.

Bains also said they testified that Warner’s gun was a semi-automatic, not the revolver Chamber claimed Warner had.

“Not a single witness agreed that Joshua Warner had a revolver in his hand …”

Bains also suggested that Warner, like Musgrave, belonged to the peacemakers at the party — because of testimony that Warner tried to diffuse the situation “before he committed his crime” and “before other sins took hold.”

Warner’s efforts to diffuse the music dispute, Bains said, can be seen in his unwillingness to give Chambers his iPod so Chambers could change the music; his gestures to Adi to not follow Chambers outside to settle the matter; and the drawing of his easily visible gun — as opposed to Chambers’ sock-concealed gun — to cause people to take cover as the shooting started.

“It is unfair that Joshua Warner be left out of this grouping,” Bains said of the peacemakers.

Bains reminded the jury that Warner has admitted shooting Tsibu-Darkou and suggested that is the only thing Warner should be paying the price for.

Bains spoke about the improbabilities of Chambers’ claims, including explanations that socks police found with gunshot residue in his apartment were from practice shooting well before the party; and that he wrapped his gun in a sock to keep it from falling from his waistband — to which Bains suggested “Isn’t a sock a slippery enclosure for a gun?”

The real reason, Bains said, is that when the gun is pulled out, the sock obscures it from being readily apparent as a firearm, giving the shooter time to aim before people realize it’s a gun.

Another improbability is Chambers’ last-minute revelation that he got rid of his gun by dropping it down a roadside sewer grate.

Bains submitted that the only gun Chambers used is the revolver that police later recovered and was shown in this trial.

Chambers’ lawyer Hicks had argued there is no evidence the bullets were from Chambers’ (now lost) gun.

Bains, however argued that firearms tests were inconclusive on what gun the bullets could have come from.

Crown prosecutors will deliver their closing address on Friday.