Witness in murder trial says Borum chanted threat at police during 2016 protests
A federal inmate testified Tuesday that in the hours before Rayquan Borum allegedly killed a man, he chanted a threat aimed at police.
Borum, 24, is charged with shooting and killing 26-year-old Justin Carr on Sept. 21, 2016, as protests swept uptown Charlotte over a deadly police shooting. His trial began Monday.
Prosecutors have said they intend to prove Borum was aiming at police officers and hit Carr instead.
The federal inmate, 27-year-old Kendell Bowden, will continue testifying Wednesday and is expected to be a key witness in that part of the state’s argument. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2017.
Bowden said he had spent time with Borum prior to the night of the shooting and met up with him early in the protests that night. Borum’s defense team has questioned Bowden’s credibility, including the fact that he remembered Borum was wearing a black shirt instead of a white one.
The two men were part of a group chanting in protest at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department headquarters on East Trade Street, Bowden said.
Bowden testified that he and other protesters chanted typical slogans, including “No justice, no peace” and “Black lives matter” — but he said Borum’s chants were more intense. According to Bowden, Borum was cursing police and chanting “Grip a Glock, shoot back” at police headquarters and elsewhere in uptown.
Glock is the name of a brand of pistols.
Asked what he thought about the chant, Bowden said he didn’t take it very seriously at first.
“Being in the attire he had on, I didn’t think he was armed,” Bowden testified.
Borum’s defense lawyers will likely cross-examine Bowden Wednesday.
In addition to Bowden, jurors heard from several witnesses Tuesday and watched even more footage of the events uptown that night.
Carr’s family members bowed their heads as video of the moments after the shooting played in court. At one point, a Mecklenburg County sheriff’s deputy left the courtroom and came back with packs of tissues, which she handed to Carr’s mother, Vivian Carr.
Two witnesses — a CMPD crime scene investigator and a member of CMPD’s Civil Emergency Unit, which faced off with protesters at the Omni Hotel in uptown Charlotte just before Carr was shot — established that the area where Carr was shot was chaotic.
After he was shot, Carr was pulled behind a line of police officers with shields and helmets in the Omni’s valet area, testified CMPD Officer Luke Amos, a member of the Civil Emergency Unit.
Firefighters trying to save Carr’s life cut his clothing off, Amos said, and then he was taken to Carolinas Medical Center in an armored CMPD vehicle.
The discarded clothing would normally remain under a CMPD officer’s supervision, Amos said, but his unit was ordered to move away after Carr left the area.
“I kinda just pushed it aside, near one of the beams, so at least it wouldn’t be out in the open,” he said.
Carr was shot around 8:30 p.m., and crime scene investigator Henry Kenneth Buhr Jr. testified that he didn’t reach the scene of the shooting until after 1:30 a.m. the next morning.
When he arrived, Carr’s clothing had apparently been placed inside a trash bin on a luggage cart near the Omni’s entrance.
When Borum’s defense lawyers asked if the crime scene was likely disturbed by foot traffic in the five hours before he arrived, Buhr agreed.
Crime scene investigators are civilians, he said, and they don’t respond to crime scenes that haven’t been secured.
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 8:59 PM.
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