<!--Rick Pfeiffer--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Rick Pfeiffer</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com">rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
You could hear the terror in Javonna Johnson’s voice.
As a Niagara County Court jury listened intently Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors played a tape recording of the young woman’s call to 911 in the early morning hours of Feb. 7. A neighbor had knocked at her apartment door and asked her to call police because a man and woman were arguing in the street in the 1000 block of South Avenue.
As Johnson begins speaking to the 911 operator, she is looking out a window by the front door of her apartment building and she tells the operator what she sees “looks like a fight.”
Then, Johnson sees something that clearly scares her.
“He’s got a gun,’ she says, her voice rising. “He’s right in front of 1028 South. He’s wearing all black.”
As the operator reassures her that help is on the way, the situation outside Johnson’s apartment building quickly gets worse. She tells the operator the suspect appears to have a second weapon.
“It looks like he’s got a pump shotgun,” Johnson says. “Oh my God. It is a gun. Oh my God. What’s he doing? He’s dragging her out of the car. Oh my God what’s he doing?”
Again, the operator tells Johnson police are on the way. Then chaos breaks loose with the sound of gunfire.
“Oh my God, something just popped,” Johnson screams. “I think he just shot her. Oh my God, he’s shooting her. He’s in the trunk, he’s got two guns. He’s shooting, he’s shooting, oh no, oh no, oh no. Please God, no.”
In the background of the tape, you could hear other people yelling and what sounds like still more gunfire.
“There’s officers outside,” the 911 operator tells Johnson.
“People are shooting,” Johnson replies in a trembling voice.
Then a second 911 line rings and a voice says to the operator, “We got all kinds of shooting going on on South Avenue.”
The hellish sounding tape recording was the first key piece of evidence to be introduced Wednesday in the attempted murder trial of Adam Hamilton.
Hamilton, 35, 2718 22nd St., is charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, a single charge of attempted second-degree murder and one count of aggravated criminal contempt in the shooting of Falls police Officers Walt Nichols and Mike Bird and his estranged girlfriend Stephanie Turk.
Earlier in the day Wednesday, a jury of six women and six men was seated to hear the case.
In opening statements to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Brian Seaman said Turk had noticed that the trunk of her car “seemed low” as she left work at 1 a.m. Feb. 7 and people were trying to flag her down as she drove to her mother’s South Avenue home.
When she arrived at the house, she noticed her car trunk lid was up and open and then Hamilton appeared at the side of her vehicle. Turk, who has two children with Hamilton, had just ended a 10-year relationship with him.
Seaman suggested that Hamilton had been hiding in the trunk of Turk’s car and “she didn’t know about the violent attack this defendant was about to unleash on her.”
She saw this defendant standing with a rifle,” Seaman said. “She tried to drive away, but he took her out of the car and tried to force her into the back seat.”
Turk fought with Hamilton, and Seaman said in the struggle to get away, she was shot twice in the foot.
“(Hamilton) continued to try to force her into the back of the car, pointing a knife at her to try to force her in” the assistant DA told the jury.
Finally able to break away from Hamilton, Seaman said Turk ran toward the porch of a nearby South Avenue home. As she did, the DA said Hamilton fired at her repeatedly with his .22-caliber rifle.
Then Seaman said Hamilton took a 12-gauge shotgun out of the trunk of Turk’s car and walked up toward the porch.
“He fired that shotgun, and the blast ripped through (Turk’s) left side.”
As Hamilton zeroed in on Turk, Seaman said Nichols and Bird arrived on the scene and Nichols exited his patrol vehicle.
“The defendant spins around, trains the shotgun on (Nichols) he lets loose a blast that hits (Nichols) in the side (between the protective panels of his bulletproof vest).”
Even though he was badly wounded, Seaman said Nichols returned fire at Hamilton, while crawling across the street to look for cover.
As Bird got out of his patrol car and took aim at Hamilton, Seaman said the gunman fired a shotgun blast at him. The blast shattered the light bar on top of Bird’s patrol car and narrowly missed striking the officer in the head.
A ricocheting shotgun pellet did hit Bird in the face, breaking bones and causing muscle damage.
As other officers arrived, the gun battle that Johnson could see and hear escalated. When Hamilton finally went down, after being hit by multiple police bullets, more than 30 shots had been fired.
“This defendant’s violent attack nearly cost three people their lives,” Seaman told the jury. “At the end of this case, we will ask you to hold him responsible.”
Hamilton’s lead defense attorney, Joel Daniels told jurors, “There’s no question here that when (Turk) drove her car up on South Avenue, she encountered Mr. Hamilton. He was in the street, and there is no question, we are not denying this, he had a .22 rifle.”
Daniels said Hamilton and Turk “argued” and that “the weapon discharged.”
“We are not disputing she was shot in the foot,” he said.
The prominent defense counsel also admitted Hamilton was well-armed and battled with police.
“We are not denying that when Mr. Hamilton was on the porch, he had another weapon,” Daniels said. “It was a shotgun. The police came and there was an exchange of gunfire, there is no dispute about that. The porch was riddled with bullets.”
What Daniels didn’t tell the jury was what he hoped they would do for his client.
“I’m not going to ask you for a particular verdict, to convict or acquit,” Daniels said. “I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind.”
