Ntabaazi Trial Update

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent

NILES – The man who shot a Michigan State Trooper last fall and was himself shot twice by the trooper went on trial last week at the Niles Courthouse for assault with intent to murder and other charges.

Isaac Ntabaazi, 24, of Niles, was charged in the Oct. 6 late evening shooting of Trooper Jason DeVries on Ninth Street near downtown Niles. DeVries had stopped the car Ntabaazi was a passenger in for a traffic violation and detained the driver. He and Ntabaazi then got in a struggle in which both ended up being shot.

Over the course of 13 seconds, Ntabaazi was shot twice in the head and is now blind. DeVries, who was hit first, was shot in the right thigh and is paralyzed from the knee down on his right leg.

The trial concluded Friday with the jury bringing in a guilty verdict against Ntabaazi on six of the seven original charges. The jury of nine women and three men did not convict him on the assault with intent to murder charge, choosing instead to convict him of a lesser charge.

Jurors deliberated for over three hours starting Thursday afternoon and concluding Friday morning after watching the dashcam video another time. They chose to not convict on either assault with intent to murder or assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, but of careless/reckless discharge of a firearm causing death or serious injury.

Ntabaazi is scheduled to be sentenced June 20 by Berrien County Trial Judge Sterling Schrock. Schrock presided over the trial and all earlier court proceedings in the case. The defendant remains in jail with his bond revoked.

While the assault with intent to murder charge carries a maximum penalty of life or any term of years, the careless/reckless discharge charge carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

With the other convictions, Ntabaazi faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison for resisting police causing serious bodily impairment, five years each for being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon and two years on each of the three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

The sentences for the felony firearm counts will be served consecutive to what he gets on the remaining counts. The resisting and obstructing police causing serious bodily impairment can also be sentenced consecutively.

Defense attorney Scott Sanford said that while he never likes to lose a case, this outcome was as much as he could hope for given the facts of the case. He noted that the jury found that Ntabaazi did not have the intent to kill or injure the trooper.

“You never want to lose but there are degrees of loss,” Sanford said. “This is as minimalistic as I could hope for with the facts of the case. The jury said he fired the weapon but didn’t intend to injure or kill. He didn’t intend to kill, it happened recklessly and carelessly.”

Ntabaazi was the last person to testify in the four day jury trial. He testified Thursday morning that he was scared and panicky the night of the incident and did not intend to kill or injure DeVries.

He said he put the gun in his pocket when the car’s driver was outside the car with DeVries. He maintained that the discharge of his weapon, a 9 millimeter semi-automatic gun, was accidental.

Five people testified for the prosecution, starting with DeVries on Tuesday recounting the events of that night. He testified that he pulled over the car in which Ntabaazi was a passenger on Ninth Street near East Main Street on Oct. 6 for a traffic violation. He detained the driver and then went to get Ntabaazi out of the car.

Four others from the Michigan State Police testified Wednesday. Troopers John Haas and Samuel Whittaker testified to what they saw when they arrived on scene, Det./Sgt. Jacquelyn Stasiak from the Grand Rapids 6^th District headquarters oversaw the investigation, and crime scene investigator Det./Sgt. Russell Karsten analyzed evidence from the scene.

Karsten said testing on Ntabaazi’s weapon found that a spent cartridge or casing had been left in the gun which apparently jammed it from firing again. He said the safety on the gun was in the off position which meant it could have been fired again.