Keith Upchurch
The Herald-Sun
DURHAM, N.C. — A Durham police investigator testified Tuesday that the pain he felt when he was shot at a traffic stop was “excruciating” and “unbearable.”
“It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” Officer Kelly Stewart told a Durham County Superior Court jury. “It was like nothing I had felt before and nothing I want to experience ever again.”
Stewart was testifying in the assault trial of Carlos Riley Jr., accused of shooting Stewart in the thigh inside Riley’s car as the men struggled for control of the officer’s gun during a traffic stop on Dec. 18, 2012.
The officer said he stopped Riley after seeing him drive recklessly on Forest Road off Broad Street. Stewart said when he approached Riley’s car and saw him reach to the floorboard, he asked Riley to get out, and before Stewart could complete his investigation, Riley got back in his car and starting driving away.
Stewart said he held onto the car and was dragged before he managed to climb inside. He said a fight broke out and Riley ripped his police badge and chain from his neck.
Stewart said he tried to handcuff Riley and that Riley said: “Oh, hell no!” and knocked the cuffs from his hands.
That’s when Stewart said he pulled his gun out, pointed it at Riley and told him: “Get back or I will shoot you.”
Stewart said Riley grabbed his gun and it fired as both men gripped it, wounding Stewart in his thigh. Stewart said his finger was never on the trigger.
After Stewart was shot, Riley grabbed Stewart’s wrist and started pushing the gun toward the floorboard, he said. Riley pressed the gun’s magazine release button and the magazine, which holds ammunition, ejected from the gun, according to Stewart.
Stewart said the magazine fell to the floorboard. He said Riley ejected a bullet from the gun and pulled the gun from his hands.
Riley placed the magazine back into the gun and put a bullet in the gun’s chamber, “making the gun ready to fire,” Stewart testified.
“He pointed the gun at me and said: ‘I can’t believe you tried to shoot me,’ ” Stewart said.
The officer, who said he was in pain and feared for his life, told Riley: “You know what, I’m sorry, you know.”
“I was thinking about everything,” Stewart said. “I’ve been shot, a man’s pointing a gun at me now, I’m thinking of my family, friends. I’m thinking he’s going to kill me.”
Stewart said Riley ordered him to leave his car and get back into his police cruiser. But Stewart said he was hurting too much to get out.
“The pain was excruciating,” Stewart said. “I couldn’t feel my leg.”
He said Riley, still holding the gun, pulled him out of his car and dropped him onto the parking lot at Forest Pointe Apartments.
“I’m lying on my back in the apartment complex and (Riley) still had the gun pointed at me and said: ‘I can’t believe you tried to shoot me,’” Stewart said. “And I’m telling him anything he wants to hear.”
Riley then got back in his car and sped away, and Stewart called 911 on his cellphone.
As the 911 tapes were played in court Tuesday, Stewart can be heard screaming as he tried to communicate with the emergency dispatchers.
EMS workers arrived and transported Stewart to Duke University Hospital.
During a tense cross-examination of Stewart, defense attorney Alex Charns tried to show inconsistencies in the officer’s testimony from an April hearing in the case and his statements Tuesday.
At one point, Stewart complained that Charns kept interrupting his answers. Charns said Stewart was responsive to questions from the prosecutors but not him.
“It’s very telling to me that when I ask him a question, he goes off on a frolic, and answers a question that has only a tiny bit to do with the question I asked him,” Charns said. “He won’t answer my questions without a struggle.”
Testimony resumes today.
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