Victim Says He Lied About Shooter’s Identity Out of Anger

By Andrew Michaels - November 10, 2021
Attempted Murder | Court | Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

The victim of a drug deal turned shooting testified on Nov. 9 that he lied to Baltimore Police Department detectives about a shooter’s identity, blaming an attempted homicide defendant out of anger and jealously.

Keith Johnson, 31, is accused of shooting the victim, who is 32 years old, around 11:50 a.m. on April 17 near the Mondawmin Mall on the 3000 block of Tioga Parkway. Johnson is charged with attempted first and second-degree murder in addition to assault, home invasion, armed robbery, robbery, burglary, and multiple firearms charges.

During the victim’s testimony on Tuesday before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer, he said he was attempting to sell drugs in an alleyway near his apartment on the 2600 bock of Fairview Avenue.

The victim said the transaction was arranged by his girlfriend, Johnson’s sister, and was scheduled for noon.

“I’m not a drug dealer,” the victim said, noting that he made the decision to do so to provide for his family. “I tried something in the alleyway that didn’t go right.”

Located about 40 to 50 feet from his home, the victim said he organized a drug transaction with someone going by the street name, “Horse,” having briefly met him twice days before the shooting. However, the victim testified that the individual who was buying the drugs was not Johnson, who the victim previously identified to police as the shooter.

When he began walking down the alleyway shortly after 11:45 a.m., the victim said, he saw Horse standing at the other end.

“I knew something funny was going on,” the victim said, but he continued to move forward.

After a brief conversation, the victim said Horse pulled out a gun from his waistband—which the victim described as a revolver—while he took out a knife to defend himself. The victim then ran passed Horse and said he made it about eight or nine steps before he was shot in the left arm and torso.

After running further, the victim said he used grass and dirt to pack the wounds and continued to a Family Dollar store nearby. When he went inside, employees “threw out” the victim by his shirt collar, he said.

Police and medics arrived shortly after, and the victim was taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma for treatment.

The prosecutor questioned the victim’s story after showing him and the jury his interview with police at Shock Trauma around 6:45 p.m. the day of the shooting.

In the video, the victim tells the lead detective that Johnson and an unidentified man arrived at his door step the day of the shooting and forced their way into his apartment. Johnson and the second man each had a gun, the victim said in the video, and stole approximately $640. Johnson then allegedly hit the victim with a door stop bar.

The victim reiterated in the video that his girlfriend arranged the drug deal and had dropped off the defendant—her brother—and the second man in a burgundy Nissan Maxima. The video interview concluded with the victim saying that Johnson was 100 percent the shooter.

Prosecution then played police body camera footage as well as a video from the transport vehicle that took the victim to Shock Trauma, both of which reinforced the victim’s prior video testimony at the hospital.

The prosecutor said the victim also produced a written statement that identified Johnson as the shooter.

During cross-examination, the victim told defense attorney Tony Garcia that on the evening of April 18, he realized what he had done by blaming Johnson and attempted to correct his prior statements by contacting the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Office and the Baltimore Police Department over the next three days.

However, he was unsuccessful.

The victim testified that he proceeded to write a letter confessing his lies and put the letter in the defendant’s mailbox, addressing it to the State’s Attorney’s Office. In the letter, the victim said Johnson was not the shooter and did not break into his apartment and hit him with the door stop bar.

When Garcia questioned the victim about why he lied, the victim told the court that he was mad at Johnson, nicknamed Chef Ricky, because the defendant had opened a successful catering business using some of the victim’s recipes.

An agent with the police department’s intelligence division later testified that he was part of the team that searched the defendant’s prison cell, where they found letters addressed to Ricky, confirming his aforementioned nickname.

The victim said it wasn’t until he held a press conference that the lead detective responded to him and his letter. The victim said the lead detective came to his house and was angry about the letter.

“He didn’t want to hear what was in the letter,” the victim said, explaining that he tried to clear up his story with the detective who only wanted to know why the victim wrote the letter.

At the conclusion of the victim’s testimony, the prosecutor called the detective who administered the photo array, a crime scene technician, and the lead detective.

The detective who administered the photo array said he did not have any history with the case when the victim identified Johnson in the photo array. However, the same detective was later a part of the search and seizure team that executed a search warrant on Johnson’s home.

No evidence was recovered, Garcia said.

During the technician’s testimony, she said she was called to the crime scene the day after to search for additional evidence and found three shell casings in the alleyway where the shooting allegedly occurred.

Garcia noted that the technician was unable to determine whether the casings were from the same shooting, fired from the same gun, or how long they had been at the scene.

Testimony continued with the lead detective on Tuesday afternoon.