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player ready...Jamal Jadallah, who was 17 in January 2019, recalled in court Thursday talking on a phone outside Orland Square when he saw people running out of the mall.
“I heard people screaming and running outside of the mall,” Jadallah said. “I asked and somebody said there is shooting.”
Jadallah went back inside, filming multiple videos on his phone.
“I was stupid,” he said, when Assistant State’s Attorney Cheryl Galvin asked why he’d gone inside. “And I was young at the time.”
The testimony came on the third day of testimony during Jakharr Williams’ trial on murder charges for the shooting death of 18-year-old Javon Britten Jan. 21, 2019.
Jadallah posted videos to his Snapchat depicting people fleeing the mall and him picking up a metal bullet fragment from the ground. The videos were later reshared by others onto Instagram, he said.
After police let him leave, he left with the bullet fragment he found, which he wiped off and threw away, he said.
“I was very scared,” he said.
Williams addressed Judge Margaret Ogarek directly after Jadallah’s testimony, challenging his indictment due to the loss of the evidence that Jadallah threw away, calling it “a violation of my due process.”
“I would like to put in a motion to challenge my indictment,” Williams said.
Williams’ attorney, David Drwencke, disagreed with his client, saying he did not believe there was a sufficient basis to challenge the indictment, and Ogarek dismissed the request.
Country Club Hills police detective Jason Strayer, who was a member of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, testified Williams was identified as a suspect early on. Police were searching for Williams when they went to a home in Matteson Jan. 23, 2019, two days after the shooting, to interview the occupants, Strayer said.
While there, Strayer said, “we noticed what appeared to be fresh footprints in the snow.”
The footprints appeared to lead from a window and go over a fence, Strayer said.
While waiting outside with another officer in an unmarked car, Strayer said, he saw a person coming up the street, who he identified in court as Williams. The officers left their car and ordered him to the ground. Williams was later charged with murder.
The trial began Monday with jury selection. Williams claims he acted in self-defense the day of the shooting.
Charles Williams, Britten’s cousin who was with him at the mall on the day of the shooting, testified Wednesday that Jakharr Williams greeted their group, saying “what’s up,” before the interaction grew heated.
By the time he heard shots fired, Charles Williams said Britten, who was like a brother to him, was standing fewer than 6 feet from Jakharr Williams.
Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar said Thursday Britten was shot twice. One shot to the left side of his chest damaged his heart and lungs, she said, while the other gunshot struck him in the side of his left leg, fracturing his fibula.
Illinois State Police forensic scientist Cari Nudera testified Thursday about firearms evidence, showing the jury six fired cartridges which she said were all .380 caliber and fired from the same gun.
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Nudera said she also examined several fired .380 caliber bullets and bullet fragments, which all matched each other.
“I determined that all of the fired bullets or fired bullet fragments that were submitted to me were fired from the same firearm,” Nudera said.
However, she was never given a gun to compare to, so although the cartridges all matched each other and the fired bullets all matched each other, she was unable to conclude if the cartridges and the bullets were all fired from one gun, she said.
Nudera said a .40 caliber cartridge she examined from a different manufacturer as part of the investigation was not fired from the same gun as any of the .380 cartridges or bullets.
The trial is set to continue Friday at the Bridgeview Courthouse.