Accused Advanced Granite shooter takes the stand in trial
Radee Labeeb Prince, who’s accused of carrying out a 2017 workplace shooting in Edgewood, took the stand Thursday and admitted he shot five co-workers, killing three and injuring two others. But his testimony ended with a tense cross examination as Prince fired questions back at the prosecutor.
Prince, 40, is charged with three counts of firstdegree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two firearms charges in connection to an October 2017 shooting at Advanced Granite Solutions.
The shooting killed Bayarsaikhan Tudev, 53, of Virginia; Jose Hidalgo Romero, 34, of Aberdeen; and Enis Mrvoljak, 48, of Dundalk. Jose Roberto Flores Guillen of Edgewood, and Enoc Sosa of North East, were injured in the attack. Both Guillen and Sosa testified for the state earlier in the week.
Though Judge Yolanda Curtin reminded Prince on several occasions to only answer questions — not to ask his own — Prince questioned Harford County Assistant State’s Attorney Timothy Doory on several occasions and said he was lying to the jury.
Defense attorneys also presented a videotaped deposition of Prince’s girlfriend and testimony from Prince’s childhood friend on Thursday. But the most outspoken defender of Prince was Prince himself.
Prince took the stand and admitted he shot five of his coworkers — killing three — at the granite shop. He said he did so because he feared for his safety.
He alleged that prior entanglements and disagreements with Rashan “Jason”
Baul in Delaware led Baul to hire others to assault him in 2014. Prince said he was stabbed in the face, and the defense showed pictures of a stitched up head wound to the jury, as well as pictures of Prince in the hospital.
In May 2018, a Delaware court sentenced Prince to 40 years in prison for shooting Baul at his auto sales business in Wilmington. The Delaware shooting occurred just hours after the Advanced Granite shootings.
Prince said the fear of being assaulted again, as well as his coworkers’ behavior at the granite shop, put him on edge. For that reason, he said, he had his gun on him “wherever [ he] went.”
On Oct. 18, 2017, Prince testified, he called his coworkers together to try to “coexist” when he said he saw a “threatening” motion to his side and started shooting.
“On my left I saw a move; I saw it was a threatening motion,” Prince told the court.
With defense attorney John Janowich questioning him, Prince spoke softly, prompting prosecutors to ask him to speak more clearly into the microphone. But when he spoke with Doory on cross-examination, the two grew progressively louder.
Doory asked Prince to imitate the motion he saw in his peripheral vision that led him to start shooting, but Prince did not. Doory questioned Prince’s resume, saying he omitted a previous job where he was fired for fighting with another worker.
Prince said he quit that job, but Doory said Prince had gone to that former workplace and sat in the parking lot before proceeding with the shooting at Advanced Granite, suggesting he was waiting to settle a score with his former coworker.
“Show me evidence,” Prince said.
“We may responded.
On the stand, Prince went on the offensive, asking Doory about past cases he’d prosecuted.
Doory and Prince spoke over each other during much of the cross examination.
Prince disagreed with the prosecution’s characterization of the events, saying the shootings were not planned as an “attack spree.” Had it been planned, he said he could have stocked up on guns and ammunition.
“You are sitting here saying I planned this,” Prince said. “Why wouldn’t I have bought bullets beforehand?”
“It is your job to answer that,” Doory shot back.
Doory’s questions were only preliminary, he told Curtin, and Prince’s testimony will continue Friday.
To begin the day, defense attorneys played a videotaped deposition of LaKendra Harris, Prince’s girlfriend, who said that Prince was profoundly changed by a 2014 assault outside a nightclub. After being beaten, she said, he grew paranoid of friends and family.
“He was a completely different person,” she said in the video. “He was paranoid; he would not trust anybody.”
Harris said Prince ate less, stared out of the windows at home and slept irregularly. Adding to that, she said, were his coworkers, who she said would try to startle him with loud noises and unwelcome touching when he worked at Advanced Granite Solutions.
Prince’s childhood friend Kurtis Parker also testified, saying that the assault changed Prince. The two have known each other since grade school, he said.
yet,” Doory