By Dylan T. Lovan, The Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - McKenzie Mattingly has answered the central question in the murder he’s accused of, and he’ll find out soon whether a jury believes him.
The former Louisville police detective who shot and killed a drug suspect on Jan. 3 said from the witness stand Tuesday that he fired because he felt his life was in danger.
Three shots from Mattingly’s Glock handgun hit Michael Newby, 19, in the back after an undercover drug operation in western Louisville went awry.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” Mattingly testified.
The high-profile trial, which begins its fifth day Wednesday, has been closely watched by many in Louisville’s black community angered at Newby’s death. The late-night shooting sparked weeks of protests of the police department. Newby was the seventh black man killed by Louisville police since 1998. Mattingly is white.
Attorneys are scheduled to make closing arguments in the trial on Wednesday.
Mattingly, 31, testified Tuesday that he thought he saw Newby reaching for a weapon after the two scuffled.
Newby “kept reaching and pulling his shirt up at his waistband and kept looking back at me,” Mattingly said in Jefferson County Circuit Court.
Mattingly said he was not certain Newby was carrying a gun. Police found a .45-caliber handgun tucked in Newby’s waistband after he had been shot.
Mattingly was the last of two witnesses called by his defense after prosecutors ended three days of testimony Tuesday afternoon.
Mattingly said he and Newby were face to face as they wrestled near his undercover vehicle that night. He said during the fight, Newby grabbed Mattingly’s gun with both hands and pulled it away. The gun fired, and Mattingly said he thought he had been shot in the foot. He and Newby separated, and Newby moved away but did not flee, Mattingly testified.
“It only took a second to determine that he was not running away,” he said. He fired four shots at Newby; one missed.
Mattingly was indicted for murder and wanton endangerment in March and fired from the police department a month later.
Prosecutors brought testimony from police who were at the scene, witnesses and forensic experts, but none said they could clearly see Newby’s hands or determine whether Newby was a threat to Mattingly before he was shot.
The detective near the scene, Matthew Thomerson, said Newby turned to face Mattingly but his view of Newby was partially blocked by a car in the parking lot. A medical examiner testified that Newby could have been turning during the shooting, but she could not say in which direction and could not determine the order that the bullets hit Newby. A witness working inside the liquor store said he could only see Mattingly as Newby was shot.
Also on Tuesday, the jury briefly visited the liquor store at 46th and Market streets where the shooting occurred.