Bar shooting suspect tries to defend actions at trial
Six people shot, one killed, in shooting outside Last Call a year ago
Lenny Whitfield admitted he fired a gun outside an Eastpointe bar that struck six people and killed one, but contended he was beaten by bouncers and didn’t realize he was shooting into a crowd.
Whitfield, 48, of Detroit, testified in his defense Tuesday at his trial in Macomb County Circuit Court for the October 2019 shooting at the Last Call bar of Jared Glenn, 34, of Roseville, who was shot in the face and died four days later.
Whitfield is charged with first-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, and firearms offenses for the incident in the parking lot of the bar located near 10 Mile Road and Hayes in Eastpointe.
His bench trial in front of Judge Michael Servitto began Monday and concluded Tuesday. Servitto said he will deliver a verdict Wednesday.
Whitfield, who went to the bar with a male friend around midnight or so Oct. 12, said a bouncer “sucker punched” him in the face after he let a beer bottle slide off the bar and it burst on the floor. He testified he believes he was beaten further, knocked unconscious by the punch and additional blows. He said he suffered a swollen jaw and eye and head scrapes.
“I woke up in the parking lot,” he said, also indicating he was “inebriated” from drinking beer and shots at the bar and at a party earlier that evening.
He said he was “afraid” the bouncers were going to come after him again and went to his pickup truck and retrieved a handgun he kept in the engine compartment.
He walked toward the bar with the gun in his hand, and he said a voice – “not my voice” – in his left
ear told him, “If you do this, you’re going to jail.”
“I heard my voice screaming at the top ofmy lungs in my right ear, ‘I don’t give a f—-,’” he said. “I raised the gun above my head and fired the gun. All I saw was smoke and fire. I didn’t see a crowd of people standing in front of the bar. I didn’t see anything. When I pulled the gun, I heard a voice saying leave.”
Whitfield said he drove both he and his friend to their homes on the same street, Farm brooke, southwest of Mack and East Warren avenues in Detroit, he said. He said the next morning he went to work as a manager of a muffler shop and told his boss he couldn’t work because of his injuries.
He was arrested between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Oct. 12 at his home.
Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Eric Sterbis’ version of the case, which he said is backed by witness testimony, differed greatly from Whitfield’s.
While Whitfield’s defense attorney, Azhar Sheikh, asked for a conviction on a lesser offense, second-degreemurder or manslaughter, Sterbis argued for firstdegree murder, contending the defendant premeditated the shooting after being kicked out of the bar twice.
“His act ions were planned, he was prepared,” Serbis said and suggested earlier during other arguments that his intended target was not only bouncers who kicked him out but all of the bar patrons.
“All those people were allowed in there, I was not,” Serbis said, quoting Whitfield. “There’s going to be hell to pay for everyone. … You’re all going down.”
Even if his intended sole target was a one of the bouncers, Whitfield can still be convicted of firstdegree murder for premeditation due to the the legal concept of “transferred intent,” Sterbis said.
“That intent travels with the bullet no matter who it hits,” he said.
Serbis said Whitfield was first kicked out of the bar for the spilled beer and then because he threatened to shoot one of the bouncers and his family.
He said surveillance video shows Whitfield left in his vehicle, an Infinity QX56, with his friend at 1:25 a.m. and returned 10 minutes later. Whitfield walked toward the bar with the gun in his hand wrapped in towel and fired six shots.
Serbis said Whitfield positioned himself for the best angle to shoot at the “sweet spot” of people gathered outside the bar’s entrance around closing time.
“He was trying to do everything he could to fire as many rounds at humanity exiting the bar,” Sterbis said. “His aim was impeccable. Six bullets fired, six people hit. One couldn’t have done a better job than Lenny Whitfield at inflicting as much pain and suffering with a handgun firing at a group of people.”
Glenn was shot in the left eye through his glasses lens, police officers testified.
Four of five of the other people who were shot testified at the trial. At least two of them still have bullets in their body, Serbis said.
Police found the .40 caliber semi-automatic weapon in a furnace duct in Whitfield’s home, they said.
Sheikh noted that at least one other witness saw Whitfield being kicked by bouncers after he was removed from the bar.
“That doesn’t make it (the shooting) right,” he said. “But, your honor, these decisions don’t happen in a vacuum.”
He argued against premeditation, saying “none of (Whitfield’s) actions make any sense” to constitute a plan.