Victims: Graduation shooter a stranger

HOT SPRINGS — The sister of a man killed in a May 2022 post-graduation mass shooting, where she was also shot, testified Wednesday that neither she nor her late brother knew the gunman.

Monique West, a local nurse, told a six-man, six-woman Garland County Circuit Court jury she had attended her daughter’s Hot Springs World Class High School graduation on May 12, 2022, at the Hot Springs Convention Center and was leaving the ceremony when she; her brother, Michael Jordan, 39; and three others were shot by Charles Johnson Jr., 26, who has said on video that he fired into the crowd that night.

West, testifying during the third day of Johnson’s trial for first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree battery, said she was accompanied to the graduation by multiple members of her family and some co-workers since her daughter is also planning to enter the health care field.

Her son, Javion West, was with her along with her son’s friend, Markezeon Carlton Green, who was also shot, and many of them were wearing T-shirts with her daughter’s graduation photo on them, noting Jordan’s said, “The proud uncle of a ’22 grad.”

Jordan had arrived later because “he thought we were going too early,” she said, laughing, and met up with them inside and they all planned to go out to eat afterward. She said the ceremony “went fine” and she left to find her daughter after the end and when they returned to their group “the atmosphere had changed” and some people “were trying to get into it with my son.”

Carl Seymour, the chief institutional law enforcement officer for the Hot Springs School District, who has been a friend and mentor to her son, offered to walk her son out, she said, and her son, Seymour and Jordan were walking out together when a young man came running across the parking lot and “jumped on them” and some others soon joined in the fight.

She noted some of the ones attacking her son were former friends who had been to her house numerous times in the past, but her son “wasn’t associated with them anymore” and had been living in Jacksonville for several months.

“It kind of went crazy,” she said of the large fight that soon ensued. “I was trying to gather my children to go. The police came and it de-escalated and the crowd started dissipating.”

She said her brother was heading to his car and she and the others were going to their vehicle when “a gunshot rang out and my first thought was, ‘Are the police out there shooting?’ but then I heard another shot and wondered, ‘Is this really happening?’”

She said a young male graduate put his arm around her and was guiding her to safety when she heard another shot and “felt a stinging in the back of my leg” and she knew she had been shot so she went to lie down between two cars, noting the young man “laid on top of me trying to protect me.”

During the ensuing chaos, she managed to check to see her daughter and some others of her family were OK and learned her brother was shot, but was told it wasn’t life-threatening and he was taken to National Park Medical Center. She said she told paramedics she wanted to go there, too, but was told it would be better to take her to CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs.

Once there, she said she began making phone calls to check on her brother and finally her sister-in-law told her Jordan was dead. Fighting back tears, West noted her brother had been “trying to separate everybody that night, he wasn’t trying to fight anybody” and that he was running away when he was shot.

Monique West stressed she didn’t know Johnson and “had never even heard his name before” and her son and brother didn’t know him either. She also noted “to her knowledge” Johnson had never been associated with any of the people her son had problems with.

Javion West, 21, testified he was walking across the parking lot with Jordan and Seymour when he was “punched from behind” and he never saw who hit him. He said the ones he was having problems with were some males he had graduated with and “grew up with since middle school.” When asked what the issue was between them, he said, “Because I wanted to do something with my life and moved away,” noting he went to college and “didn’t want to stay here.”

Candice Hughes, who was also shot that night, testified she was at the ceremony to see her nephew graduate and was with his parents and other family members. She said she heard “a commotion” outside as they were leaving and worried her niece might be involved so she went to check.

She said she saw multiple people fighting and in the middle of it she saw someone holding “a 2- to 3-year-old child and then they dropped him.” She said “my mom instincts kicked in” and she ran over to grab the child and had just handed him off to people who knew him when seconds later she heard gunshots.

Hughes said she started running across the lot to a family member’s car when she was shot and fell on the ground. “I was just hoping my kids were OK. It was a really bad situation.” She said HSPD officer Jonathan Langford, a school resource officer at Hot Springs High School, came over to help her and “took off his pink tie to make a tourniquet.”

She said the bullet had entered her calf and shattered her fibula and “I still have shrapnel in my leg today,” and showed jurors the scars in her leg at one point.

Hughes noted she didn’t know Johnson and wasn’t familiar with any of the other names mentioned during the earlier testimony, including the Wests or any of the ones Javion West reportedly had issues with.

In earlier testimony Wednesday, former HSPD Officer James Moore testified he was working off-duty security at the ceremony and was near the convention center entrance at Laurel and Church streets when he heard there was a fight in the parking lot off Convention Boulevard and went over to help break it up.

He said there were at least three separate fights involving men and women which he described as “a brawl” so he radioed for backup from other HSPD officers. He said the crowd was “starting to disperse and calming down” and he was “catching my breath” when he heard two shots over his left shoulder.

“It was a shock to me because it was really close by,” he said, noting he looked and saw a man running away from him with his arm extended and then saw a muzzle flash. “I drew my weapon and then saw a second flash and knew for sure that was the shooter.”

Moore said he waited until the shooter had “cleared the crowd a little and there was a small gap so I could fire,” noting it was “like everything was in slow motion” as he fired two rounds toward the man and then when another gap appeared he fired a third round.

He said the man continued running “never wavering or stopping” so he wasn’t sure if he hit him or not, but later they found blood in the area of Laurel and Church streets where the man was last seen running and realized he had apparently been hit.

Moore noted that after he returned to duty from administrative leave while the shooting was investigated, he decided to resign. He said he gave his two weeks’ notice even though he was cleared by the investigation.

The trial is scheduled to resume today with Judge Ralph Ohm presiding and Deputy Prosecutors Caitlin Bornhoft and Brock Price representing the state and local attorney Mark Fraiser representing Johnson.