‘A devastating situation’
Homicide trial of former police Officer Michael Rosfeld begins with eyewitness accounts of the death of Antwon Rose II
Two people who witnessed the shooting death of Antwon Rose II described former Officer Michael Rosfeld as angry and forceful in the moments immediately before he fired three shots at the fleeing teenager in June.
“I had a bad feeling,” said Lashaun Livingston. “As soon as I pulled my phone out is when the officer let out shots.”
“Automatically — boom, boom, boom. Three shots,” said Debra Jones.
Both women — neighbors at the time on Grandview Avenue in East Pittsburgh — were called to testify Tuesday on the opening day of Mr. Rosfeld’s homicide trial. He is accused of killing Antwon, 17, of Rankin, after he pulled over a gold Chevy Cruze that had been involved in a driveby shooting in North Braddock 13 minutes earlier in which two people were wounded.
The trial resumes Wednesday morning before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Alexander P. Bicket. The jury hearing the case, selected in Dauphin County because of pretrial publicity, is being sequestered in Pittsburgh.
There are racial overtones in the case — Mr. Rosfeld is white and Antwon was black — and the shooting led to weeks of protests and demonstrations last summer.
Security at the courthouse was heavier than usual, but there were no major incidents inside or outside the building Tuesday. Some police officers rode horses along Grant Street, while others kept watch in their vehicles near street barriers.
Sections of Grant Street, Forbes and Fifth avenues, and Ross Street adjacent to the courthouse will be closed while the trial is in session.
The seats in the main courtroom were filled with about 30 spectators and a dozen media members. Several friends and family members of the Rose family wore purple. Mr. Rosfeld’s wife, mother and father attended.
An overflow room showing a live video feed to another courtroom held about 60 spectators
— many also appearing to support the Rose family.
Throughout the day’s proceedings, Mr. Rosfeld sat between his attorney and an investigator attentively watching, alternatively with his hands clasped and his right leg bouncing up and down.
Ms. Livingston, the final witness of the day, told the jury that she was on her porch on Grandview Avenue doing yoga when she heard the officer’s police siren as he pulled over the Chevy Cruze about 8:40 p.m. June 19.
“I heard the tone of his voice,” she said. “That type of tone frightened me, myself. An angry tone — harsh. It was moreso angry — that he was mad at someone or something.”
The 23-year-old got out her iPhone and began recording.
The prosecution played Ms. Livingston’s 34-second video — the sound of the three shots reverberating loudly around the courtroom.
The shots immediately were followed in the video by her shouting: “Why are they shooting at them? Don’t shoot at them.”
Ms. Livingston said she began to have a panic attack and stopped recording. A few minutes later, though, she started recording again.
“I wanted to get the truth out,” she said. “Because it was a devastating situation.”
Ms. Livingston said she didn’t see either Antwon or backseat passenger Zaijuan Hester with a weapon.
“Did you see them make any motions toward the officer before they fled?” asked Chief Trial Deputy District Attorney Dan Fitzsimmons.
“No, not at all,” she said. On cross-examination by defense attorney Patrick Thomassey, Ms. Livingston could not say how far her apartment was from the shooting scene, saying, “I’m not sure,” at least four times.
Finally, Mr. Thomassey said he measured it, and the distance was 180 feet. She didn’t disagree.
Ms. Livingston also agreed with the defense attorney that children were playing along the street that evening and that the rear window of the Cruze appeared to have been shot out — supporting the contention Mr. Thomassey made earlier in the day that Mr. Rosfeld knew the car he was pulling over had just been involved in the North Braddock drive-by.
Ms. Jones, who testified earlier in the afternoon, lived in the house adjacent to the grassy lot where Antwon was shot.
She said that she, too, was on her porch when she saw Officer Rosfeld stop the Chevy Cruze.
“All of a sudden, he drew his gun,” Ms. Jones said. “I fell down to the ground.
“He asked the driver to get out with his hands up. He threw him down to the ground. He was talking to him pretty rough.”
Ms. Jones testified that Officer Rosfeld then ordered Antwon and Hester out of the car.
“’Passengers, get out,’” she remembered him saying in what she described as an “ignorant” tone. “’Raise your hands and get out.’”
“I seen a pair of legs get out, and I said, ‘Please, God, don’t run.’
“The passengers opened the door, slowly got out and started running,” Ms. Jones said. “The police officer shot three times. I said, ‘You shot them boys for running.’”
Minutes later, she continued, she saw Antwon lying facedown in the grass with his hands cuffed behind him. Ms. Jones also saw Officer Rosfeld.
“He was red and very upset, crying,” she said of the officer.
Although Ms. Jones gave detailed information about what she saw, Mr. Thomassey tripped her up on some of her testimony. She testified that both Antwon and Hester were in the back seat of the car, and she also testified that Officer Rosfeld did not use his lights or siren, which conflicted with Ms. Livingston’s testimony.
Finally, Mr. Thomassey read from a police report that said, “Jones did appear to be under the influence during the interview” with police later that night. He asked her whether she’d been drinking on her porch before the shooting. She said she had not, but did accept a few drinks of liquor from neighbors after the incident.
During his opening statement Tuesday morning, Mr. Fitzsimmons told the jurors that as Antwon was running from Officer Rosfeld, he posed “no danger whatsoever.”
Nonetheless, within four to five strides, the prosecutor continued, Antwon had been shot three times — the fatal wound through his back, his right lung, his aorta and right ventricle of his heart.
It will be up to the jurors, Mr. Fitzsimmons continued, to determine what Officer Rosfeld knew.
“In the end, what really matters is what Michael Rosfeld knew and what he thought when he pulled the trigger and shot 17-year-old Antwon Rose.”
But in his opening, Mr. Thomassey told the jurors what his client knew — that as a police police officer, his job was to “protect our lives and our property in society.”
He spent several minutes in his opening praising the work of law enforcement, noting that 144 officers were killed last year in the line of duty across the United States.
“You think Officer Rosfeld got up on the 19th of June and thought he was going to shoot someone? Of course not. He left his wife, and he went to work.” Later, he continued, “You have to make, as a police officer, a split-second decision. You hesitate, you die.”
Then, Mr. Thomassey emphasized to the jury the history of the area where the drive-by shooting occurred in North Braddock.
“Over the years, it’s become a valley of crime. Drive-by shootings happen all the time,” he said. “This is the kind of area we’re talking about. This is the kind of area Michael Rosfeld had to patrol every day.”
Addressing the specifics of the two shooting incidents that night, Mr. Thomassey called Antwon “complicit” in the drive-by — even if evidence shows he didn’t pull the trigger.
“They tried to murder two people right up the road,” the attorney said.
He told the jury he would call a use-of-force expert — the prosecution will not — to testify on his client’s behalf.
“All he did is what a trained officer should do — to protect you, you, you, you, you and me,” he said. “So, is he a murderer? Look at him.
“He’s a policeman who did his duty.”