Refusal to name shooter not due to ‘code’: Reid

An accused murderer who admits being at the scene, but claims innocence while refusing to identify the shooter, says his defiance has nothing to do with a code of silence on “snitching” to police.

Erick Reid, 27, was in his second day of testifying in his own defence Thursday when the Crown prosecutor suggested he was holding steadfast to “the code” instead of telling the truth as he had sworn to do.

“It has nothing to do with the code,” Reid said. “It has to do with my safety, my life.”

Reid has testified about the code with the group he hung around with from the Oriole Crescent east-end neighbourhood. The code meant you don’t rat someone out or testify against them.

“I know a lot of people who spoke to police who are no longer here. They’ve been killed,” he said.

When assistant Crown attorney Brian Adsett suggested that someone who chooses to follow the code over an oath to tell the truth cannot be believed, Reid replied, “I’d like to help but I’m afraid.”

Adsett questioned Reid’s account of what happened the day that barber Neil Harris was shot and killed at his Upper Wellington barbershop on Feb. 18, 2016, by pointing to cellphone records submitted earlier in the trial.

The records show Reid was not where he said he was — and negate his contention that he had no contact with the shooter after the murder, Adsett suggested.

Reid has admitted to being one of the two men who entered Harris’ shop moments before he was shot. But he said he was taken there by the other man so he could buy marijuana for his weed-selling business.

Reid and co-accused Odain Gardner are on trial for firstdegree murder in Harris’ death.

Reid maintains the man who accompanied him to buy pot — who he has refused to name — was the shooter. Reid is also adamant he had no idea the shooting was going to happen that afternoon.

He said he stayed in the doorway inside the shop while the other man went up to Harris. He said he then heard a loud noise before Harris crashed into him as he stumbled out onto the sidewalk where court heard he collapsed.

On Thursday, when Adsett named Odain Gardner as the other man, Reid was quick to point out, “I didn’t say a name.”

He also said he never saw a gun.

On questions about meeting up with the shooter afterwards at the Oriole Crescent group’s hangout at a Barton Street house, Reid said he doesn’t remember because he blacked out.

“Until this day, I don’t know why this happened,” he said.

Several times, Adsett challenged Reid’s story by saying “that code, it’s getting in our way again.”

Reid admitted changing his clothes at the hangout to avoid being detected as having been at the murder scene. But he also said he was angry at the shooter for “ruining his life” with this and didn’t want anything to do with him.

“And yet your phone records show you had contact with Odain Gardner ... on seven (consecutive) days (after the shooting),” said Adsett.

Reid answered, “I cannot tell you who I was talking to.”

“I never said Mr. Gardner was the person who took me there (to the shop). I’m prepared to tell you I had nothing to do with it. I went there to buy weed.”

Reid disagreed with Adsett’s suggestion that Gardner told Reid he was going to kill a barber and needed backup.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have a gun that day.”

When Adsett suggested it was a planned and deliberate execution, and that Reid has been minimizing his role ever since, Reid insisted he did not know what was going to happen.

Reid was arrested in Calgary months after the murder, court has heard.

Gardner has not testified. Closing arguments in the trial are expected to start on Monday.