Gabriel Gamez Trial For Shooting A Group Of HS Football Players In NC

Bossip Video

The trial has begun for Gabriel James Gamez who has been charged with first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill “n**gers on their high horses.”

According to The Herald Sun:

An hour before he allegedly shot at a group of high school football players, killing one of them, Gabriel James Gamez told two employees at the Outback Steakhouse that he would shoot any black person who said anything to him or his family, according to testimony during his trial Friday.

Gamez, 24, is standing trial in the Durham County Courthouse for first-degree murder in the death of Darrell Turner, an 18-year-old high school student from Pennsylvania who was traveling with a team of all-star football players from the Pittsburgh area. Turner, his teammates and coaches had stopped for the night and were staying at a hotel near the Interstate 40/U.S. 15-501 interchange as they traveled to Florida. Seven members of the team were walking back to their hotel after eating dinner when the shooting occurred about 10 p.m. on June 23, 2011.

The two female employees were 16 years old and working as hostesses at the Outback Steakhouse on Mt. Moriah Road on the night of the shooting.

They testified that Gamez, who came to the restaurant with his family, approached them and began talking to them. He seemed a little weird because he was wearing sunglasses at night inside the restaurant, and although he looked young, he was using a cane and limping, said hostess Emily Donnell.

“He came up to us and started a conversation about living in Durham, just like casual,” Donnell testified. “He then started saying racist comments about how he couldn’t live in North Carolina,” she said. “I couldn’t live in North Carolina because of the n**gers on their high horses,” she quoted Gamez as saying. “When I walked back he was talking about that if anybody said anything to him or his family he would pull his gun out and shoot them, and he put his hand in his pocket making reference to the fact he had a gun on him,” Donnell said.

That night when the restaurant closed, Donnell was assigned to stay late to help clean up. As she was cleaning the windows, she saw Gamez walking around in the parking lot after his family had already left. Then as she was cleaning a window on the outside of the restaurant, she heard gunshots and she went inside to tell her manager that someone was across the street shooting, she said. As she walked across the restaurant, she saw someone frantically pounding on the take-out door. “He was bleeding and immediately started talking about his friend across the street,” Donnell said.

Earlier in the trial, Thomas Woodson, one of Turner’s teammates, testified that when Gamez showed he had a gun, he and the other players turned and ran away. Woodson, who is black, said he ran to a side door of the Outback restaurant and began pounding on the door, saying someone was shooting. He had been shot in the leg, was bleeding and fell to the ground, he said. Donnell said she immediately suspected that the man who had been in the restaurant had done the shooting because of what he had said about having a gun and shooting a black person. When police came, she told an officer that she thought she knew who did the shooting and she told him about the man and his comment about having a gun.

The players testified they were confused about what Gamez was complaining about and they turned around to see what was going on. Turner, who was closest to Gamez, began arguing with him, and they exchanged curse words. Gamez called them n**gers, they said. Then Gamez pulled up his shirt, revealing a gun in his waistband, and they all turned around and ran in the direction they were originally walking. Turner was shot in the back and fell to the ground and died after the bullet pierced his heart, according to testimony of witnesses during the trial.

Gamez is on trial for first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury for allegedly shooting Woodson in the leg, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill for shooting at the other players, and five counts of attempted murder for shooting at the players. The court session ended at 1 p.m. Friday, and the trial is scheduled to resume Monday morning at 10 a.m.