Paralyzed NOPD officer identifies his attacker in court
by Gwen Filosa, The Times-Picayune
From the wheelchair he received after a gunman's bullet to his neck instantly paralyzed him in May 2006, New Orleans Police Officer Andres Gonzalez today identified for a jury Eddie Harrison III as the man who shot him repeatedly in the face and neck nearly two years ago in Algiers.
NOPD officer Andres Gonzalez was paralyzed after being shot in 2006.
Harrison, 25, appeared in court today wearing a white dress shirt and tie, his hair in the short twists that Gonzalez said he recalled from the afternoon when he was last able to walk or run.
"Are you ever going to forget his face?" Assistant District Attorney Greg Thompson asked Gonzalez, dressed in his NOPD uniform for Harrison's trial at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.
"Never," replied Gonzalez, who at age 25 was nearly killed after pursuing a passenger who fled a car during a police stop in Algiers Point on May 22, 2006.
Harrison faces as many as 50 years in prison if convicted of attempted first-degree murder. A jury of five men and nine women -- it's unclear who are the alternates and who are the 12 jurors -- listened today as Gonzalez testified in Judge Julian Parker's courtroom.
About 65 spectators sat in absolute silence as Gonzalez answered questions from prosecutors and then public defender Don Donnelly, a veteran of the defense bar at Tulane Avenue and Broad Street.
"I'm sorry for your injuries," Donnelly began, while seated beside his client. "I thank you for your service. Please understand that I have duties to perform as well."
Gonzalez recounted once more what happened after he and his 4th District patrol partner, Rebecca Easley, pulled over a car about 3 p.m. that spring day two years ago, after noticing the car's windows were darkly tinted.
The driver told the officers that he had no license or registration to provide, Gonzalez testified. Then, the passenger raced out of the car. Gonzalez chased him on foot. When the two turned a corner, in the 500 block of Opelousas Street, Harrison turned around and pointed a gun at the uniformed officer, Gonzalez said.
"He turned around quickly with a gun in his hand," Gonzalez said. "He was in mid-stride when he turned around and pointed it at me. ... I grabbed the gun and tried to wrestle it out of him. I wasn't really aware when I was shot. But you do feel the bullets. I didn't look down to see where I was bleeding from."
Gonzalez was shot four times within seconds, he told the jury. The gunshots didn't stop after he was shot in the neck, instantly paralyzing him, Gonzalez said. The gunman shot one more time even after the officer, a former sheriff's deputy who joined the NOPD in 2004 and rode out the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, had fallen to the pavement.
That was the moment Gonzalez said he realized he had been gravely wounded. Donnelly asked him to recall for the jury when he noticed his own wounds.
"When I fell to the ground," Gonzalez said. "And I couldn't breathe because I was choking on my own blood."
The trial, which opened Monday, continues today. Prosecutors Thompson and Rhonda Goode-Douglas already have called additional witnesses who link Harrison to the crime scene, including Gonzalez's partner at the time, Easely, who identified Harrison in court as the suspect who ran away after the traffic stop.
Easley has since left NOPD, saying she wanted to spend her time caring for her daughter.
On Tuesday, as she left the couthouse, Easley said she admires her one-time partner for his endurance through his surgeries and rehabilitation.
"He is a tremendous person," she said. "He overcame challenges. Sitting up, for him, can be a challenge."
During his cross-examination of Gonzalez, Donnelly asked the officer why he would pursue a man he hadn't detained or arrested.
Gonzalez repeated that the driver, a 17-year-old Joshua Hall, had no license or registration and was driving a car that the NOPD's "tint meter" concluded had windows tinted so that they had "zero visibility" from the outside.
"He could have been in a stolen car," Gonzalez told Donnelly.
Gonzalez had a chance to draw his own weapon, the NOPD-issued .40-caliber Glock handgun, after Harrison had pointed his own gun at the young cop. But Gonzalez never fired, he told the jury.
The only weapon Gonzalez had in his hands when he caught up with Harrison was his NOPD-issued expandable baton.
"He was a lot stockier than I was," Gonzalez explained. "In all the chases I have been in when I caught the person, it always ended up in a fight. Him being bigger than me, I figured it would help me out."
Harrison, a pastor's son from Algiers, had been in and out of police custody since age 15 when he was arrested in 2006 and accused of trying to kill Gonzalez.
Harrison had reason to run from police that afternoon, said Capt. David Kirsch, then-commander of the NOPD 4th District in Algiers. Harrison, a convicted armed robber at age 17, could have worried about being arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, which carries as many as 10 years in state court upon conviction, police said.
A month after his release from prison for a Jefferson Parish armed robbery, for which Harrison got five years, Harrison was arrested in Orleans Parish on fresh felony allegations, including automobile theft and aggravated assault with a firearm. The district attorney's office, then run by Eddie Jordan, refused the charges weeks later, court records show.
On July 6, 2004, Harrison was booked with aggravated battery, but the Orleans Parish district attorney's office decided not to pursue that case either.
At the time of the Gonzalez shooting, Mayor Ray Nagin said that too many aggressive young men had returned to New Orleans, a city still grappling with the aftermath of the Katrina disaster, ready to test the limiits of law enforcement.
Hall is awaiting trial on charges of principal to attempted murder and illegal use of a weapon. He also was cited for reckless operation of a car and a seat-belt violation.
Gonzalez joined NOPD in September 2004 after graduating from the police academy with the highest fitness score among his class of recruits. He started duty in the 2nd District but transferred to the 4th District three months before he was shot.
At Tulane and Broad, Gonzalez has been warmly welcomed by staff and other regulars at the courthouse this week. There, he is known by his nickname, "Chico," and remembered for having worked as a sheriff's deputy for several years before becoming a police officer. Gonzalez was a deputy years back, when the uniforms were dark brown and Katrina was not a household word for suffering.
Donnelly tried to suggest that Gonzalez was mistaken in his identification of Harrison, citing a September 2006 interview with local newscaster Liz Reyes, in which Gonzalez said he couldn't remember much after he was shot. Donnelly asked how the officer could now recall the incident in graphic detail.
Gonzalez said he had been on pain medications and was tired from his physical therapy the day he granted a television interview from Touro Hospital. Gonzalez, who watched many criminal court trials as a sheriff's deputy, said he also did not want to give any details of the shooting to the media before Harrison went to trial.
"I didn't want it to come back against me here in court," Gonzalez told the jury today.