Tensing trial reveals new shooting witness

Key developments

• • An eyewitness gave testimony that conflicted that of two UC officers
• • Jurors view body camera footage of the shooting for the first time
• • No one testified they saw Tensing being dragged by the car

Alicia Napier was loading her two young children into her car when she witnessed what she would later learn was the fatal shooting of Sam DuBose by a police officer.

Napier, 26, watched much of the July 19, 2015 shooting unfold from her car’s driver’s side mirror. She was parked about 50 feet away on the same side of the street.

“Something told me to keep watching,” she said.

Napier’s testimony Wednesday in the murder case against former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing shocked many in the courtroom, including DuBose’s family. Tensing is standing trial in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Napier is believed to be the only civilian eyewitness to the shooting interviewed by police. Her testimony was the first time she told her story publicly.

“After I hear the ‘pow,’ that’s when I (saw) DuBose’s car move in the middle of the street,” Napier said.

When it's cops testifying against another cop

A key point for both the prosecution and defense is whether DuBose was driving away, dragging Tensing with him, before Tensing shot DuBose once in the head.

Prosecutors say Tensing wasn't dragged. Tensing’s attorney says he was, and that's why he acted in self-defense.

Napier’s testimony came on the first full day of testimony, a day that also saw two of Tensing’s fellow officers testify they heard the sound of squealing tires before the gunshot.

They had gone to the scene of the Mount Auburn shooting after Tensing radioed that the vehicle he was pulling over had been “slow to stop.”

Officer Philip Kidd, a 10-year veteran, said he heard “tires squealing,” saw DuBose’s car move, heard a gunshot, then saw Tensing “fall away from the car.”

An officer Kidd was training that day, David Lindenschmidt, gave a similar account.

"As I opened my… door, I could hear squealing tires, then within a couple seconds, a gunshot," Lindenschmidt said.

In the moments after the shooting, Kidd, Lindenschmidt and Tensing ran to the corner where DuBose’s car crashed into a utility pole. Prosecutors say that DuBose’s foot hit the gas pedal in a “postmortem reflex.”

In Kidd’s body camera video played Wednesday, Tensing told Kidd: “He was dragging me… I just got my hand and my arm caught.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Kidd responded.

In court Wednesday, Kidd admitted that he never saw Tensing being dragged. He did estimate that Tensing ended up about 10 feet away from where the traffic stop began.

“I saw him moving and the car moving,” he told Tensing’s attorney, Stew Mathews.

Jurors on Wednesday for the first time saw the bodycam videos of all three officers. During the moment in Tensing's bodycam video when Tensing shot DuBose in the head, one juror opened her mouth in apparent shock.

After the video was shown, Tensing, sitting at the defense table, took a deep breath and exhaled.

Napier testified that she initially believed DuBose shot Tensing and drove away. She said she ducked down inside her car after the gunshot, and heard DuBose's 1998 Honda Accord drive by. She heard another sound she thought was a gunshot, but likely was the sound of DuBose's car striking a guard rail.

When Napier, who drove away from the scene, was interviewed by Cincinnati police detectives later that night, she still believed a police officer had been shot.

Also during questioning Tuesday, Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Rick Gibson asked Kidd if an officer would be justified in shooting a person who tries to drive away from a traffic stop.

"No," Kidd said.

He later told Mathews that if an officer fears for his life, "I believe that would justify it (shooting)." Mathews has called the Accord a 3000-pound weapon. He said Tensing believed he would get pulled under.

"We are taught to stop the threat," Kidd said.

Among those in the courtroom Tuesday were several of DuBose's family members, including his mother, sisters and brothers. They have been sitting on one side of Judge Megan Shanahan's courtroom. Tensing's family has been sitting on the opposite side.

Video from the courtroom

Wednesday Tensing trial recap