By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
A U.S. attorney told a jury Tuesday to convict a reputed gangbanger accused of ambushing an FBI agent and shooting him in the back in broad daylight in Brooklyn.
“If I were to walk up behind Mr. Navarro right now and shoot him in the back, you’d think ‘he just tried to kill that guy,’” Donoghue said of his co-counsel, assistant U.S. attorney Francisco Navarro, during closing arguments in the attempted murder trial of Ronell Watson, NY Post reports. “And you’d be right. Mr. Watson intended to kill when he aimed that loaded firearm and at Agent Harper’s back and fired.”
Watson, a reported Crips gang member, is accused of attempted murder of a federal officer, assault of a federal officer and possessing and discharging a firearm on Dec. 8, 2018. At the time, FBI Special Agent Christopher Harper was on surveillance assignment with other agents when Watson approached his vehicle.
Moments after Harper was shot, he was heard telling an NYPD office, “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.”
Harper survived the shooting after suffering a collapsed lung, a broken rib and fractured shoulder blade.
Defense attorney Michelle Gelernt claims his client panicked when he saw a strange car with tinted windows quickly approaching him.
“Ronell Watson was no assassin,” she said. “He’s just as afraid of agent Harper as agent Harper is of him.”
Watson faces up to life in prison.
