Inmate testifies in assault trial

By Ed Runyan

The defendant didn’t completely confirm his co-defendant’s account of events.

YOUNGSTOWN — A man sent to prison for 97 years in December for stealing a car at a Youngstown church and later firing shots at police during a rolling gunbattle testified Monday that the driver of the car was an unwilling participant.

“I told him [defendant Duniek Christian] that if he didn’t drive, I would shoot him,” Jumal Edwards, 25, told the jury in Christian’s felonious assault trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Edwards testified for the defense.

Edwards, brought to court from the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, admitted firing at police officers out the back passenger window of a Cadillac he stole from Mount Zion Church in Youngstown on July 1, 2005.

Edwards’ attorney, James Mellone, told Common Pleas Court Judge James C. Evans before Edwards’ testimony that he advised Edwards against testifying because of an appeal filed in Edwards’ own case but that Edwards wanted to testify anyway.

Edwards said he and two other men picked up Christian, 23, of North Garland Avenue, that day and drove him a short distance on the East Side, where he forced Christian to drive. He said Christian never fired any weapons.

Edwards said the men intended to “meet some dudes” for revenge of an unspecified nature, but they never made it there.

A short time later, two police cars, one marked and one unmarked, closed in on the Cadillac at Oak Street, resulting in a collision between the Cadillac and the unmarked cruiser and shots being fired between seven Youngstown police officers and the men in the Cadillac, officials say.

The chase led to evacuation of the County Department of Job and Family Services, which was then located on Garland Avenue, and a six-hour manhunt. Christian, Edwards and a third man convicted in the episode, Craig Franklin Jr., 20, of Glenwood Avenue, were arrested at the same apartment the next day. There were no injuries.

Franklin eventually got 105 years in prison.

Ironically, when Christian testified later Monday, he didn’t entirely confirm Edwards’ account, stressing that he felt the need to drive the car as Edwards had asked because he feared Edwards and suspected there were guns in the car.

For about the first 30 minutes of Christian’s testimony, he never mentioned Edwards’ threatening to shoot him if he didn’t drive.

When asked about it later by Mark Hockensmith, an assistant county prosecutor, Christian said he was having a hard time remembering Edwards’ exact words. “He basically said, ‘You drive or I’ll shoot,’” Christian said.

Christian said he knew Edwards because Edwards “used to talk to my sister,” he knew Franklin a little because he was a third cousin and knew the third man least of all.

As for the collision with the unmarked cruiser, Christian said it was the cruiser that initiated the collision, not him. He was driving away from both cruisers, not toward them, he said.

Two of Christian’s felonious assault charges are for allegedly ramming the cruiser. Seven other charges relate to weapons being fired at seven named police officers.

Christian said he doesn’t know why Edwards stopped to pick him up from in front of his cousin’s house on Forest Street, where he was staying at the time. He accepted the ride because he needed to go to his mother’s house, he said.

If convicted on all charges, Christian could get 125 years in prison.

The trial resumes today.

runyan@vindy.com