‘I just thought he was trying to scare people’
Teammate testifies about hearing gunshots on day Mylan Hicks was slain
The first shot fired outside Marquee Beer Market the morning Mylan Hicks was killed was into the ground, Calgary Stampeders receiver DaVaris Daniels testified Tuesday.
And despite immediately fleeing the scene upon hearing the gunshot, Daniels said he thought the shooter was just trying to scare people.
“He fired a shot kind of toward the door, toward the ground,” Daniels told Crown prosecutor Gord Haight.
Daniels said the shot followed a verbal altercation in which the gunman and another individual approached a group of Stampeders standing outside the club after closing.
He said a larger friend of the gunman’s had initially tried to get into an argument with Hicks but was pulled back by the shooter.
But after the larger man approached Hicks a second time, the eventual gunman joined the fray.
“They were both kind of in his face, Mylan’s face,” Daniels said.
“Mylan wasn’t really saying much.
“There was glass thrown by the shorter guy.
“I remember him taking a few steps to the left and pull out.”
Daniels said he didn’t know where the gun came from, but saw it in the man’s hand.
“I know it was a handgun, silverish.”
He said Hicks appeared startled when the gun was fired.
“When it happened, the first shot kind of froze him,” Daniels said.
Hicks ran one way and Daniels said he went the other.
“I went the opposite direction into the parking lot trying to get away from the gunman as quickly as possible.
“I just thought he was trying to scare people.”
Calgarian Nelson Lugela is charged with second-degree murder in Hicks’ Sept. 25, 2016, death.
Daniels said he heard a second shot as he fled, but didn’t hear another. Other witnesses testified that Hicks was shot twice after the first shot was fired.
Daniels said when things had calmed down, he went to return to where the altercation took place and ran into teammate Roy Finch.
“He was saying, ‘they shot him, they shot him.’”
That’s when Daniels saw Hicks lying on the ground.
“He had one shoe off,” he said, as Hicks’ mother, Renee Hill began to sob in the courtroom gallery.
His roommate, Jamal Nixon, was holding Hicks and trying to comfort him.
“I just remember him gasping,” Daniels said of his dying teammate.
In cross examination, defence lawyer Alain Hepner grilled Daniels on a photo lineup conducted by police hours later.
Daniels chose someone other than Lugela from the 10 photographs he was shown, and checked “no” beside a picture of the accused.
Daniels said one of the reasons he picked the individual he did was the photographed man was wearing a white shirt, as the gunman was.
And he said he made the choice “after no sleep.”
Meanwhile, a former club doorman described watching an individual in a white T-shirt carrying a gun jump out of an SUV, run past the door and fire his weapon.
Aaron Ostlund said the shooter then returned to the vehicle, got in the passenger side and it drove away.
“As soon as I saw the gun I turned inside and said ‘gun, gun, gun’ trying to notify the people inside to call police,” Ostlund said.
“I opened up the door and heard pop, pop, pop.”
Court was also shown dash cam video from two cabs waiting outside the club where gunshots can be heard before people start to flee. The trial, scheduled for two weeks, continues.