The teenager on trial in the death of a Pasadena high school student bragged after the fatal brawl that he crushed Noah Jamahl Jones’ head, a key prosecution witness told a jury yesterday.
Joshua David Bradley testified that as they left the July 24 melee, Jacob Tyler Fortney, who is on trial on manslaughter and related charges, was among the youths in a celebratory mood.
“Did you see me kick him?” Bradley recalled Fortney saying. “I crushed his head.”
Jones, 17, died of brain injuries after the fight outside a Pasadena home. Six men including Bradley, ages 19 to 21, are charged. Fortney, 19, is the first to be tried.
Bradley, who has maintained that he did not touch Jones, agreed to testify in exchange for Anne Arundel County prosecutors dropping charges against him.
Bradley testified that he saw Fortney run toward Jones after Jones was down, jump long and high, and then land on Jones’ face — an account first given to prosecutors in March and which Fortney’s lawyers vigorously challenged yesterday.
As Bradley testified, several jurors leaned forward and watched the 20-year-old intently. Elsewhere in the courtroom, Jones’ mother, Robin Jones, listened, clutching a tissue, sometimes shaking her head.
Bradley appeared nervous as he spoke. But in more than an hour on the witness stand, he stood by his statements implicating his friend.
Bradley said under questioning by Deputy State’s Attorney William D. Roessler that he was bothered by testifying.
“I feel bad,” he said. “Jake’s my friend for a long time.”
Bradley said that he saw a youth on the ground and three of the other defendants by him, one kicking Jones’ stomach, another his head. He wasn’t sure whether the third, Richard Elbert McLeod, was kicking, but said McLeod stretched his arms out because Jones said he had had enough.
Fortney pushed McLeod’s arm out of the way, Bradley testified.
“He jumped probably from about [Jones’] feet to his head and landed on his head,” he said.
Bradley said Jones’ body “shook.”
Fortney later bragged that he got the new nickname “Air Jordan,” Bradley said, “because of the kick he did at the end.”
But under cross-examination by defense lawyer David W. Fischer, Bradley hedged about seeing Fortney land squarely on Jones’ face.
Bradley was a short distance away from where Jones lay on the pavement near Fortney’s parked Mustang.
“I didn’t see Jake’s feet touch his face,” Bradley replied when Fischer asked whether he saw Fortney’s feet actually land on the victim’s face. But, Bradley said, he could see Fortney land where Jones’ face was.
Fischer accused Bradley of fashioning the Air Jordan story from the police report, telling jurors the 205-page document says Jones was wearing Air Jordan shoes. Bradley denied the accusation.
Fischer and Fortney’s other lawyer, David Putzi, told jurors the account surfaced only as prosecutors were weighing which of six defendants to try first — although Bradley’s uncle testified that Bradley told it to him from the start.
The defendants in the case are white, and Jones was black. Some in the African-American community, including Robin Jones, contend that the brawl was racially motivated.
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But the lead detective in the case testified yesterday that he did not find a racial motive for the brawl. None of the men is charged with a hate crime. The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People successfully sought a federal civil rights probe after prosecutors dropped the initial murder charges against four of the men accused. In November, a grand jury indicted the six men on manslaughter charges.
Fortney’s lawyers contend that Bradley’s account does not square with the autopsy report. When the defense presented that account as a hypothetical case Monday, Dr. Ling Li, an assistant Maryland medical examiner, testified that she did not find evidence to support it.
Jones and three friends — two of whom are charged with bringing weapons — showed up uninvited to an outdoor gathering at the Pasadena home to get a friend out of the house. The friend, Jahlil Best, went inside after seeing Fortney’s group arrive because one of them had a problem with Best’s brother, according to earlier testimony. As a result, Michael Steinbach and his guests were locked out of his house. Jones’ friend Marion Shepherd became belligerent as he demanded that Steinbach produce Best, pistol-whipping Steinbach, Steinbach has testified.
Yesterday, Bradley said that after Shepherd pointed the gun at others, he slugged Shepherd with brass knuckles, which police did not recover. That disarmed Shepherd, but the brawl ensued. Another of Jones’ friends is accused of having a stun gun, and Bradley said Jones had a hammer.
Before the fight was over, Bradley said he heard another of Jones’ friends on a cell phone, asking someone to bring the “four-fives,” a reference to guns.
Prosecutors will rest their case today, and Fortney’s defense will begin.
For previous articles about this case, go to www.baltimore sun.com/jones.
<!– CUTLINE TEXTJacob Tyler Fortney is charged with manslaughter.
CUTLINE TEXT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTJoshua David Bradley is testi fying for the prosecution.
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