‘Casualties of their own plan.’ Defense blames victims as jury gets Columbus gang case
The victims were cast as the aggressors as attorneys for three men on trial for murder argued self-defense in an apparent gang-related shooting at Columbus’ Wilson Homes apartments.
Those men now are waiting for a jury to decide their fate, as deliberations began Tuesday morning, after closing arguments took all day Monday.
While denying their clients had gang connections, the defense lawyers emphasized that the four teens shot were in the Zohannon gang, one of the city’s largest, and had guns, masks and gang colors in the car the suspects raked with gunfire on June 14, 2021.
That car four times had passed the house the three defendants were in before they opened fire, killing driver Jesse Ransom, 17, and back seat passenger Saiveon Pugh, 18, and wounding Ta’Journey Lee. 16, and Wandray Harris, 19.
Both survivors claimed they were out looking for girls that night, and never saw who shot them.
“The only girl they were looking for was trouble,” said William Kendrick, representing Homer Upshaw.
The claim they were out to meet women was ludicrous, he told the jury. “I know y’all are not buying this, right?”
Police testified all the teens in the car were Zohannons, he added, asking, “Was this car not full of gang members? It was.”
One witness testified Ransom used the same car two days earlier to shoot up a house in the same neighborhood, and Pugh, who was found with a .22-caliber rifle in his lap, had been pistol-whipped by a man known to hang out in the area, Kendrick said.
The teens were out looking to shoot someone, he said: “They had no right to be riding around shooting up homes, and endangering people’s lives.... They ended up casualties of their own plan.”
Addressing jurors directly, he said: “If this is OK, there’s going to be a lot more of this riding up and down the street, in your neighborhood.”
Awaiting the verdict
The jury of eight men and four women now must decide a case that involves a total of 24 charges and 1,086 exhibits.
It took Judge Gil McBride over an hour to read the indictment and explain the law, before jurors could start weighing the evidence to decide the suspects’ guilt or innocence.
Besides Homer Upshaw, 28, the defendants are his brother Terrance Upshaw, 31, represented by Shevon Thomas II; and Rodderick Glanton, 28, represented by Allen C. Jones.
Besides murder, they’re charged with aggravated assault, criminal damage to property, possessing guns while committing felonies, and violating Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
Prosecutors from the Georgia attorney general’s office allege they’re in the Marlow street gang, which is affiliated with a larger group called US World. Authorities have said US World and the Zohannons had a gang war in 2021 that boosted the city’s homicide total to 70 that year.
The three defendants came out of a house on Seventh Avenue at 32nd Street and fired about 60 shots at the teens’ Dodge Dart. Prosecutors claim the trio sold drugs out of two houses there, one on Seventh Avenue and another on 32nd Street.
Prosecutor Cara Convery said they shot up the car to protect their turf, having established a stronghold at Wilson Homes, and they can’t claim self-defense for defending their “drug zone.”
Representing Glanton, Jones said Georgia’s self-defense law stipulates that residents have no duty to retreat when threatened: They can shoot first to defend themselves.
Such statutes sometimes are called “stand your ground” laws.
“When someone shoots at you, you do not have a duty to run. You don’t have a duty to hide. You don’t have a duty to die,” Jones said.
Kendrick echoed that, saying the defendants felt they had to shoot first, convinced they were the ones being targeted.
Bullets go through walls, he added, so they couldn’t just run back inside the house and take cover:
“What are you going to do, hide in the house when bullets are coming through the house?” he asked.
