An Erie County jury Thursday found a Buffalo man guilty of killing a Metro bus driver who was on his front porch before sunrise waiting for a cab ride to work.
Jurors deliberated about three hours before convicting Joshua Mitchell, 25, of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. Mitchell faces 25 years to life in prison when sentenced April 22.
“I’ll be back,” Mitchell said softly to his friends and family in the gallery as he was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.
Friends and family of the victim, Brian G. Chapman Jr., hugged each other and praised God as they walked out of the courtroom.
“We thought we presented a favorable case,” said David R. Addelman, Mitchell’s defense lawyer, “Mr. Mitchell and his family are very disappointed in the verdict.”
Buttressing the prosecution’s case was testimony from a police officer who was on patrol on Guilford Street at the time of the shooting and heard the gunshots. The officer pursued and stopped the car carrying Mitchell and arrested him.
“The police officer was certainly johnny-on-the-spot,” District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said.
“The prosecutors did a great job, and the police investigation was professionally done,” Sedita said.
After a week of testimony, the jury listened to closing arguments Thursday and then deliberated on whether they believed Mitchell shot Chapman with a .38-caliber handgun.
It was before sunrise on Feb. 1, 2012, when Chapman readied himself for work driving a Metro bus and was waiting on the porch of his Guilford Street home for a cab ride to work.
Meanwhile, Joshua Mitchell rode around Buffalo in the back seat of a borrowed Saturn Ion as he and three others looked for places to buy beer and marijuana.
Police Officer Dennis Gilbert was in an unmarked Crown Victoria, following the Saturn Ion and nearly rear ending the car before passing it by on Guilford.
Seconds later, several shots rang out, killing the popular 37-year-old bus driver.
Officer Gilbert testified he noticed a person on a porch on Guilford but did not see anybody else on a sidewalk, lawn or anywhere else.
But Gilbert remembers the Saturn because he was three car lengths behind it when it came to an abrupt stop on the street.
He swerved to avoid striking the car.
Then the driver’s side rear door swung open. The officer swerved again.
“I nearly struck the door,” he recalled in court this week.
Gilbert testified a large black man got out of the car.
“In my head, it was holy (expletive), I almost hit that person,” Gilbert said.
The gray Saturn resembled a silver Ford Focus the police were looking for that morning. After passing the Saturn on Guilford, Gilbert slowed down to run the car’s license plate number.
That’s when the officer heard several shots “from directly behind me,” Gilbert testified.
Gilbert testified his police car and the Saturn were the only cars moving along Guilford shortly before 5 a.m. on the chilly February morning. Gilbert said he did not see who fired the shots.
“As soon as I heard the gunshots, I got on the radio and identified who I was and where I was,” Gilbert said. “I did a 180.”
After he turned his car around and drove back toward the gunshots, the Saturn headed toward him.
Gilbert drew his gun and steered his police car toward the Saturn to try and force it off the street but then he made an evasive move to avoid striking the car.
The Saturn continued south on Guilford.
“I did another 180,” Gilbert said.
The Saturn turned right onto Genesee Street. By now Gilbert had turned on his siren and lights.
Then the driver of the Saturn pulled over and stopped on Herman Street, a block from Guilford.
With his gun drawn, Gilbert ordered all of the occupants to reach their arms out of the car windows.
Backup officers arrived quickly, Gilbert said.
About three hours after the shooting, Detective Salvatore Valvo interviewed Mitchell at police headquarters downtown.
Mitchell told the detective he and his friends were on Guilford looking for a “weed house,” the homicide detective testified.
Mitchell told the detective that he got out of the Saturn and then heard gunshots.
“All I heard was ‘pow, pow, pow,’ ” according to Mitchell’s statement to police, which Valvo read in court.
Mitchell told the detective he did not see anyone except a man standing on a porch.
“I heard the shots and started running back to the car,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell’s defense lawyer said Mitchell was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Someone shot Brian Chapman,” Addelman said. “Someone killed Brian Chapman. It was not Joshua Mitchell.
“No one saw Joshua Mitchell shoot anybody,” Addelman said.
“Joshua Mitchell, by all accounts I heard, did not know Brian Chapman,” Addelman said. “He had no reason to want him dead.”
Prosecutor Gary W. Hackbush, who prosecuted Mitchell, told jurors the evidence against Mitchell was convincing.
“After a brief chase, Officer Gilbert caught that cowardly killer,” Hackbush told jurors earlier this week.
Hackbush, who prosecuted Mitchell along with Assistant District Attorney John P. Gerken Jr., scoffed at Mitchell’s denial.
Mitchell stood on a sidewalk, raised the revolver, aimed it at Chapman and pulled the trigger “round after round after round.”
“There’s only one person who gets out of that car: this defendant,” Hackbush said during his closing argument Thursday.
Don’t buy into a phantom gunman theory, Hackbush told jurors.
A neighbor saw a large, black man – fitting Mitchell’s physical appearance – in front of Chapman’s home fall to the ground on his way back to the car, Hackbush told jurors.
“There’s no one else fleeing the scene,” Hackbush said.
Carmella Gilliam, who was driving the Saturn, said Mitchell got out of the car on Guilford. The gunshots soon followed.
“Oh my God, Joshua is on the ground,” she recalled saying to the others in the car.
Once Mitchell got back inside the car, Mitchell told his companions said somebody else fired the shots, Gilliam said in court.
“I told everybody to get down,” she said.
She then sped down the street, ducking behind the dashboard herself.
Another passenger in the car recalled seeing a black object in Mitchell’s hand.
The gunshots startled Chapman’s partner, Furmond Bolden, who was in bed upstairs. Bolden said he looked out the bedroom window but could not see anyone.
“I ran down the stairs and looked out the front window,” Bolden said in court.
He saw Chapman’s legs. Chapman was leaning against the front door, unconscious.
Bolden then opened the front door and “he fell into the house.”
“I had him in my arms as I called 911,” Bolden said.
“Brian’s life ended violently and senselessly in the arms of his weeping spouse,” Hackbush said.
In the Saturn’s trunk, police found a nearly full box of .38-caliber ammunition.
A couple of days before the shooting, Mitchell sent text messages looking for a gun and .38-caliber ammunition, Hackbush told jurors. The text messages were read to jurors.
Patrick Franovich, 23, of Dunkirk, testified he let Mitchell stay at his apartment because Mitchell had a court case in Dunkirk the day before Chapman’s shooting.
Mitchell did not have any money and called a friend in Buffalo for a ride back to Buffalo.
During his stay, Mitchell showed him a .38-caliber revolver, Franovich said.
Gilliam picked up Mitchell in the early-morning hours of Feb. 1 and drove back to Buffalo. Back in Buffalo, the group picked up Mitchell’s girfriend.
“We went riding,” Gilliam said, describing how the group drove around Buffalo looking for beer and marijuana.
Mitchell said he knew of a spot on Guilford where they could get marijuana, Gilliam testified.
Police recovered the handgun they said Mitchell used to shoot Chapman. Prosecutors said Mitchell tossed the gun from the car at Guilford and Genesee after the shooting, about a half a block from Chapman’s house.
A forensic biologist testified in court that DNA from several people was found on the gun. The DNA expert said he could not say for sure Mitchell’s DNA was on the gun, but neither could the expert exclude Mitchell as a source of some of the DNA.
In his closing argument, Hackbush said Mitchell approached Chapman’s house because he thought it was a weed house.
“He didn’t know who Brian Chapman was,” Hackbush said. “He approached the person who he believed to be a weed dealer.”
Mitchell approached Chapman’s porch with a loaded gun and no money, the prosecutor said.
Five shots rang out, Hackbush said.
“Your determination of guilty will not be difficult,” Hackbush said.
email: plakamp@buffnews.com
