Final say at trial in shoot of FBI agent

A federal jury heard closing arguments from both sides Monday in the trial of an alleged Crips member accused of attempted murder in the December 2018 shooting of an FBI agent on a Brooklyn street.

In his summation, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue laid out his case in the simplest of terms, saying video of the incident clearly shows Ronell Watson shot FBI agent Christopher Harper “without provocation” while the G-man sat in his car.

“The video recordings unequivocally show that Ronell Watson shot agent Harper in the back at close range without provocation,” Donoghue said. “Although this case is very important, it’s frankly not very complicated.”

Security footage shows Harper parked outside Watson’s Canarsie home about 3:20 p.m. on Dec. 8. Watson is seen driving the wrong way on the one-way road, jumping out of his car and approaching the agent’s vehicle with one hand inside his hooded sweatshirt.

As the startled agent begins to move his car, Watson opens fire.

“As soon as agent Harper pulls out, Mr. Watson immediately takes out that handgun and starts to fire it at him,” said Donoghue. “He runs alongside the car, you actually see him run for three, four, five steps alongside the vehicle as he’s firing into the vehicle.”

In her closing argument, Watson attorney Michelle Gelernt referred to the case as a “tragic misperception” on the part of Watson, who she said felt threatened by the unfamiliar presence of Harper’s service vehicle. She said the vision-impaired shooter had no intention of killing — or even harming — the agent.

Donoghue disputed this in his rebuttal and gestured to his co-counsel Francisco Navarro.

“If I were to walk up behind Mr. Navarro here and take out a handgun and shoot him in the back, the first thing you’d think is, ‘He just tried to kill that guy.’ And you know what? You’d be right,” said Donoghue.