Bella Roma Pizza Shooter Led Police on Car Chase on Day of Arrest

By Andrew Michaels - July 15, 2022
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

Six days after the shootout at Bella Roma Pizza that claimed the life of Cameron Green, an auto theft team for Baltimore City and neighboring counties, was staked outside the residence of homicide defendant Anthony Priester.

Multiple detectives with the unit testified during Priester’s jury trial on July 14, recalling moments before they were led on a brief car chase through Northeast Baltimore in April 2021.

On the night of the shooting on March 26, 2021, five men—allegedly including Priester— shot up Bella Roma Pizza, killing Green and injuring another man. Priester’s trial began on July 13 before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Hong.

During Thursday’s testimony, a detective with the auto theft team said he and his team were on the lookout for a white Hyundai Elantra with Texas tags—a rental car that Priester was believed to be driving after taking his Honda Accord in for repairs at Caliber Collision on the 5600 block of Belair Road.

The detective said he and other members of the team saw Priester and a woman get into the Hyundai Elantra near his residence and begin driving away. Priester allegedly sped off when he locked eyes with the detective, the detective said.

“He saw me with big eyes and drove passed,” the detective testified, after which the jury was shown his body camera footage.

Following a brief pursuit, Priester lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a hedge on the 2500 block of Hamilton Avenue, where he was placed under arrest.

A 70-year-old Baltimore resident who lived nearby on Moravia Road testified that she was walking home from 7-Eleven when she looked in a gutter, saw an object, and kicked it to get a better look.

“It looked kind of heavy for a toy,” she told the jury, as she described kicking the object once more along the curb, picking it up, and realizing it was a handgun.

Her testimony corroborated the auto theft detective’s earlier testimony that Priester threw a handgun out the driver’s side window during the car chase.

Defense attorney Creston Smith’s cross-examination of multiple witnesses, including a Baltimore City Police Department crime lab technician and two detectives, focused on forensic evidence.

The crime lab technician said screens of an iPhone and an Android cell phone were submitted as evidence. Out of the 101 cartridge cases retrieved from the scene, she said, only three were not submitted as forensic evidence as they came into contact with blood.

Six blood samples were also submitted for analysis.

Smith confirmed that the doors and countertops of Bella Roma Pizza were not tested for DNA evidence.

A detective who said she worked alongside the primary detective in the investigation noted that she didn’t recall directing the testing of specific pieces of evidence, which she said is generally ordered by the primary detective.

Another detective, who was part of the search and seizure of Priester’s home, informed the jury that an extended clip from a handgun was found inside a backpack in the defendant’s bedroom.

Smith reiterated that not only was no ammunition found, but no handgun was found inside the home at that time.

Earlier in the day, the jury was also shown surveillance footage from outside and inside Bella Roma Pizza that captured Green’s final moments before he was shot to death.

The prosecution played several clips of footage from Baltimore City, a neighboring business, and the restaurant that showed what had been previously identified as Priester’s Honda Accord pull up to the left side of the pizzeria’s entrance and five masked men exit. As Green and another man stood at the checkout counter inside, one masked man is seen walking into the restaurant and opening fire, while the others shoot from outside.

In the footage, a rain of bullets sends Green to the ground, but the other victim, who escaped with non-life threatening injuries, is seen diving through the front counter vestibule and limping his way through the back kitchen to escape out the side door.

Two Bella Roma employees were also seen running to the back of the restaurant as soon as bullets rang out that evening.

The trial is scheduled to continue on July 15.