Wong Trial: Jurors Cry During Trooper Blanton Shooting Video

Credit: citizen-times.com


Edwardo Wong talks with his defense team during pre-trial motions Monday in Catawba County.


By Asheville Citizen Times
Published: September 02, 2010
Updated: September 09, 2010 - 4:56 PM

NEWTON, N.C. ––
Update: September 9th, 4:45pm

Jurors in the Edwardo Wong's trial cried as sounds of the Trooper David Shaw Blanton Jr. screaming after he had been shot filled the courtroom during the trial.

According to the Asheville Citizens Times, the jury watched the original recording made from Blanton's patrol and then a DVD.  They also listened to enhanced audio of the shooting.

Including a break, the recordings took more than an hour.

Update: September 8th.

A truck driver took the stand Wednesday, describing the scene at shooting of Trooper Shawn Blanton. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports, Robert Bowman says he saw the trooper pull onto I-40.  Minutes later Bowman heard another trucker say the trooper had been shot.

The Citizen-Times reports that a motorist testified he heard two to three gunshots. He says he saw Wond standing over trooper Blanton.

Prosecutors began presenting evidence Tuesday, in the murder trial of Edwardo Wong. Both sides made opening statements on Friday.

Wong is charged with first-degree murder in the 2008 shooting death of state Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr. during a traffic stop near Canton.

The judge said the trial will run from 9:30am to 5pm each day. Attorneys expect the trial to last five weeks.

Wong is facing the death penalty.

http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/sep/02/12/judge-says-no-more-delays-wong-trial-moves-forward-ar-782315/

Witnesses describe Trooper Blanton shooting scene
By Jon Ostendorff • September 8, 2010

NEWTON — Truck driver Robert Bowman was traveling from Mississippi on Interstate 40 when he saw Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr. flash his patrol car headlights a few miles west of Canton.

The big rigs made way and Blanton pulled on to the highway from the shoulder and took off, Bowman recalled.

Five minutes later he heard another trucker over his CB radio saying the trooper had stopped a motorist seven miles down the road.

He couldn't believe what he heard next.

“He shot the cop, he shot the cop, he shot the cop,” Bowman recalled the truck driver yelling. “At the time I thought this has got to be some kind of sick joke.”

Bowman was the third witness to testify Tuesday, the first day of the state's evidence in the murder trial of Edwardo Wong Jr.

Wong is charged with first-degree murder in Blanton's 2008 shooting death during that traffic stop. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The state earlier in the day called Lt. Greg Christopher, a commander of Blanton's patrol troop, and Sgt. Hugh Feinberg, who was on Blanton's shift the night he was killed.

Feinberg drove straight to the Canton exit when he heard the signal 25 code over the radio. The code means an officer needs immediate assistance. It was the first time in his dozen years as a trooper that he had heard it.

When he got there, Blanton's patrol car lights were still flashing and the trooper was on the ground near the passenger-side door.

Blanton's shirt was open and front panel of his ballistic vest was off.

Truck drivers and other civilians mixed with officers and rescuers were trying to help.

Feinberg tried to secure the scene.

“It was a little bit of chaos,” he said under questioning from the state. “Everyone was trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.”

Assistant District Attorney Reid Brown called Feinberg and Christopher to the stand to tell the jury about the equipment a member of the N.C. Highway Patrol carries on the job and the equipment inside a patrol car, including the video recording machine in Blanton's car.



Feinberg also used areal photographs to explain to the jury where Blanton stopped Wong along the interstate.

On cross examination, Randal Seago, one of Wong's two defense attorneys, focused in on Blanton's decision to get Wong out of his truck that night and talk to him on the shoulder of the road.

Feinberg, under questioning from Seago, said troopers typically have a routine procedure in a traffic stop. It includes explaining to the motorists that the trooper is a law enforcement officer, asking for a driver license and explaining the reason for the stop.

Sometimes troopers ask for a vehicle registration though not always because they have in-car computers that can check registrations.

The procedure creates a “command presence” designed to keep the traffic stop calm and under control, Seago said.

Blanton stopped Wong because the license plate on his truck and the car it was towing were not in a police database. Wong offered to get his registration when Blanton told him the reason for the stop.
The tags later turned out to be legal.

“So a traffic stop that began with someone being whistled at and told to get out and come to the back and not looking at the registration, that would be an uncommon stop?” Seago said.

Feinberg agreed.

Christopher also said the procedure seemed atypical from most traffic stops though both men said troopers have leeway when it comes to officer safety or when they suspect a crime.

“It wasn't unusual,” Christopher said. “I would say it was uncommon. From what we know about the stop, it was.”

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100908/NEWS/309070039/1009&theme=BLANTON

Jury Sees Slain Trooper's Dashcam Video
Third Day Of Testimony Continues In Edwardo Wong Capital Murder Trial
Myra Ruiz, WYFF News 4 Reporter
POSTED: 9:52 am EDT September 9, 2010
UPDATED: 5:58 am EDT September 10, 2010


The images caught on dashcam show Trooper Shawn Blanton in his last moments of life.

NEWTON, N.C. –– Trooper Shawn Blanton's widow wept and his mother cried, as the jury saw dashcam video Thursday morning from the slain trooper's patrol car the night he was shot.

The video showed Blanton off to the side of the road, while pulling over the defendant, Edwardo Wong, on June 17, 2008. Blanton could be seen getting out of his patrol car and summoning Wong out of his vehicle.

Wong could be seen walking out of his own vehicle and to Blanton's vehicle.

The audio was also garbled as the trooper inquired about the tags for the pick-up truck Wong was driving and the vehicle he was towing.

Wong could be heard asking if he is under arrest. Blanton could be heard responding "no" and explaining that he needed to frisk Wong for officer safety reasons.

In the recording, Wong was heard saying "Yeah, but, sir, you pulled me over for no reason."

"I pulled you over because your tags don't come back to the truck," said Blanton.

"Yes, it does," responded Wong.

The recording was hard to under as Blanton instructed Wong to sit down and Wong said he would prefer not to sit in the patrol car.

Moments later, Wong is heard saying "I gotta gun," followed by the sound of Blanton screaming.

Blanto was later heard pleading "Don't shoot!"
The images caught on dashcam show Trooper Shawn Blanton in his last moments of life.

Wong could be seen walking back to his vehicle.

Blanton later died at the hospital.

Wong did not watch the video. He sat in the courtroom with his head down the entire time.

Blanton's father and stepmother left the courtroom before the video was played.

Prior to the playing of the video, the defense team raised objections.

Wong is accused of shooting Blanton and driving off. Wong's public defenders do not deny that Wong shot Blanton, but they argue his actions were not premeditated.

Before the jurors entered the courtroom Thursday morning, the defense team objected to the state's plans to play dashcam video several times from Blanton's at the scene of the shooting.

Judge Nathaniel Poovey said he would allow the prosecution to play the dashcam recording for the jury once with both the video and audio, a second version with just the video and a third time with enhanced audio.

Wong sat with his hands on his face and looked down as the enhanced audio recording was played.

In the recording, Blanton could be heard telling Wong he could have his drivers license back and explaining to the defendant how to remove the weapon from his holster.

Thursday's testimony also came from a couple of truckers who were in the area during the traffic stop.

Gary Bowes wiped away tears as he answered questions from the prosecution about what he saw.

Bowes said he could see a trooper standing by a man who appeared to be talking as he drove by in his truck and looked through the right side-view mirror.

He said just as he lost sight of the two men, he heard gunshots and stepped on his brakes.

Bowes appeared to struggle with his emotions when describing how Blanton was lying on the ground and unable to speak.

Bowes later explained why he chose not to touch the trooper.

"They have a circle around them that you just don't violate," Bowes said. "And somebody there that evening had made a comment about not touching so that nothing was messed up. That was wrong."

A prosecutor asked Bowes, "So the problem that you're having is that you felt like you didn't do enough?"

"Yeah," answered Bowes, with tears in his eyes.

The jury also heard from a teenage witness who was traveling with her father as he drove passed the traffic stop.

India Brown, who was 12 years old when the shooting happened, said she saw Wong stand up after sitting on a guardrail, push the trooper and then shoot him three times.

http://www.wyff4.com/r/24939305/detail.html

Opening arguments detail Wong case in Trooper Blanton slaying trial
By Jon Ostendorff • September 4, 2010

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Twitter FarkIt Type Size A A A Next Page1| 2| 3Previous PageNEWTON — Tightly focused forensics will pinpoint the first drops of blood.



Though scratchy, an audio recording will play back the final words.
And a child — a 10-year-old girl on vacation with her father — will tell of seeing three flashes of gunfire that killed Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr. during a nighttime traffic stop.
With those words to jurors Friday, prosecutor Reid Brown promised to put the seven men and seven women at the scene of Blanton's slaying. The case, he said, will sometimes seem like a roller coaster ride.
“You are going to hear the last words that this young man says,” Brown told the jury in his opening statement as the trial of Edwardo Wong at last got under way — two years after the shooting and three weeks after jury selection began.
“He is going to tell you ‘Don't shoot me. I have a wife and a child.' You are going to hear Shawn Blanton gasping for his last breath.”
Defense attorney Mark Melrose, in his opening argument, slowed the roller coaster down. And he revealed details not made public before Friday — a girlfriend in Fletcher, a suicide attempt while in prison, gun wounds suffered fleeing prison guards.
“Nobody could sit in this courtroom and listen to what Mr. Brown said and not be moved,” he told the jury. “It moved me. It was a very effectual opening in setting an emotional level in this courtroom. Justice demands a focus on the evidence and not on emotion.”
He told the jury that the state could not prove that the killing was premeditated and deliberate, a standard needed for a first-degree murder conviction that could lead to Wong's execution.
“It was suspiciously absent from the emotional opening Mr. Brown made,” Melrose said.
Melrose said the recording of Blanton gasping for his last breath on the side of Interstate 40 in Canton doesn't prove the charge of first-degree murder.
“What is at issue here is not to weigh Trooper Blanton's suffering against Mr. Wong's actions,” he said. “That is not the consideration here. The suffering is large. It's huge. Your job is to assess the why and how this happened.”
(2 of 3)


"You are going to be there"
Brown, the prosecutor, gave jurors just a preview of what they could expect, including that from the eyewitness. She looked out the window and saw Blanton on the shoulder with Wong.


“Then she is going to describe to you something no 10-year-old should hear: three gunshots fired so close she could see the flames from the barrel,” he said.
Recordings of calls made to 911 will show how truckers helped police capture Wong and rushed to help Blanton, pleading with him to hold on until rescuers arrived, Brown said.
Cameras inside Haywood County Sheriff's Office cars will show how deputies and local police dropped everything to capture Wong, he said.
Police witnesses will describe the guns, drugs and money they found inside Wong's truck that night, including Blanton's service weapon.
Brown said Blanton's widow, Michaela, will testify about seeing her husband at the hospital the night he died.
“You are going to be there,” Brown told the jury. “You are going to see it. You are going to feel it.”
Important details
Melrose was startlingly upfront with the jury in his opening.
He admitted that Wong shot Blanton. He admitted that Wong was carrying two illegal guns along with cash, marijuana and the drug Ecstasy in his truck that night.
He said that was because Wong is a drug dealer.
“You will hear evidence that drug dealers carry guns,” he said. “That is pretty common with drug dealers.”
The case has a dividing line, Melrose said.
It starts at the moment Wong shot Blanton and the jury must only consider what happened at that moment and the minutes before, he said.
Those minutes hold important details, Melrose said.
Wong had no ill will toward Blanton and cooperated with the officer when he was pulled over, Melrose said. Wong tried to avoid a confrontation and offered to get a registration for the truck he was driving to show that it had a valid license plate.
Wong's legitimate business was selling used cars. He said the Nissan he was towing that night had a valid dealer tag from a car lot Wong worked for in Florida.
(3 of 3)


He had gone to Florida to get the car and was bringing it back to Fletcher, where he lived with his girlfriend, to sell it.


Wong, he said, knew he had drugs and guns in his truck and wanted to avoid being stopped by the police. He made sure, Melrose said, to obey traffic laws and even put extra lights on the back of the car he was towing.
Blanton made the stop that night because he could not find information about the tag on Wong's truck and the Nissan sedan he was pulling in a police database, though testimony in earlier hearings showed he was also looking for drug activity.
Wong told the trooper he was carrying a gun when Blanton tried to search him after insisting that he sit in the patrol car. He fired the shots as Blanton reached for his own gun, the defense team has said.
Wong didn't shoot Blanton again after he was down despite having two loaded handguns of his own and Blanton's gun, Melrose said.
Melrose said Wong only took Blanton's gun to disarm him and had not planned on stealing it before the shooting happened. Wong tossed Blanton's patrol car keys over the guardrail.
Chinese mafia
The speed in which the shooting happened goes against the idea that Wong planned to kill Blanton, Melrose said.
“This case is essentially about two men getting in an argument,” he said. “One man tries to exert force and control over the other, the argument escalates into a sudden and thoughtless shooting.”
Melrose took most of the day Friday for his opening, which was delayed several times by objections from the state.
He offered the jury a concept that will be important to Wong's defense.
Wong, he said, isn't able to think about his actions before making them because he suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child when he fell from a five-story apartment building in New York City.
He was 4 at the time. After that his family gave him a nickname in Chinese that means “bad boy.”
Wong's father was a member of the Chinese mafia and was killed in a federal prison.
Wong, Melrose said, was raised to distrust and avoid law enforcement. He has a history of running from the police.
In 1992 he led officers on a chase while riding a motorcycle that reached 95 miles an hour before he crashed. He ran, Melrose said, because he had a revoked driver license.
In 1997, while serving seven years in a Florida prison, Wong tried to disarm an officer and escape during a visit to the dentist. He was unable to get the officer's gun and was shot in the bottom while running away in leg irons.
He suffers bladder problems because of the gunshot wound and uses a catheter to urinate.
Wong tried to hang himself in prison with a catheter tube in 1999.
All of this, Melrose said, helps explain why Wong shot Blanton.
“He just has a fear of incarceration,” Melrose said. “He is always running from the police. His father was murdered in prison.”
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100904/NEWS/309040037/1009&theme=BLANTON

Wong was carrying two illegal guns along with cash, marijuana and the drug Ecstasy in his truck that night

Edwardo Wong calmly drove off, says witness at trial
By Jon Ostendorff • September 9, 2010


Newton— Wednesday in court, motorists at the scene of Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr.'s shooting death described seeing the man charged with Blanton's murder leaning over his body before walking calmly back to his truck and driving away.



They took the stand during the state's second day of evidence in the first-degree murder trial of Edwardo Wong Jr., who faces the death penalty if found guilty.
Candler resident Patrick Crowley, a construction company vice president, was the first person to reach Blanton after he was shot during a 2008 traffic stop on the Interstate 40 shoulder in Canton.
He had been to visit his grandfather in Tennessee and was on his way home in his Toyota Corolla. The traffic was heavy that night as he neared Canton, he said.
Crowley said he was in a hurry and stayed in the left lane while other traffic merged to the right. With a lane closed for paving, he moved to the right just before traffic stopped.
There was a tractor-trailer in front of him, and he saw blue lights off to the side reflecting on the guardrail.
“I first heard two or three gunshots,” he said. “So I decided I would pull my car over up to the side so I could get a look at what was going on.”
Crowley said he saw Wong standing over Blanton.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh my God. He shot the police officer,'” Crowley said. “The only thing that I could think of was to try to get a good look at him, so I turned my bright lights on for about five seconds, got a good look at him and shut them off. As soon as I turned off my bright lights, he looked at me.”
Wong searched Blanton's pockets, he said.
“He stood up and walked to his vehicle like nothing happened and took off,” Crowley said. “I was scared to death.”
As soon as Wong pulled away, Crowley said he got out of his car and ran to Blanton and tried to get his attention.
“I was yelling, ‘Officer, officer, can you hear me? What's your name?'” he said.
But there was nothing he could do.
“He was on his stomach, his head was turned to the right,” Crowley said. “I did not move him. I shook him a little bit trying to get him to answer me. He was gasping for air, almost a gurgling sound. His eyes were open, but it was like there was nothing there. He wasn't there anymore.”
(2 of 3)


Prayers for Blanton
It wouldn't be long before others, including Madison County resident Randy Combs, rushed to help.


Combs, a grading contractor, was traveling that night with his 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son. They were in his father's Mustang, and his daughter was driving.
He saw Wong's truck moving faster than other traffic and cautioned his daughter to watch out.
A short time after he saw Wong, a trooper went by and traffic slowed. They stayed in the right lane.
Combs heard the tractor-trailer truck in front set its parking brake. He talked with his children about getting off and taking a back road home.
They were talking about how late it was getting when they heard three gunshots and saw the muzzle flashes.
The driver of the truck in front of his car came to the Mustang's driver side door, and Combs immediately got out.
He said on the witness stand he was a little hostile with the man because he didn't know who he was or whether he was involved in the shooting.
The truck driver threw up his hands and asked for a cell phone to call 911, saying somebody had just shot the trooper. Combs' son handed him a phone, and it was in the process of dialing 911.
Combs and the driver peered around the trailer while on the line with 911. Combs said he saw someone standing over the trooper but didn't get a good look at him.
He saw Wong's truck pull away and watched as a big rig up ahead tried to pull over and block the truck. Wong went around him and sped up and went down the Canton exit ramp, Combs said.
“I ran to the trooper's car,” he said. “There was a couple people there already. The right passenger front door was open. Trooper Blanton was lying face down, and his head was up under the car, a little bit under the threshold.”
Combs could hear the truck driver talking to 911, and he could hear Blanton struggling to breathe.
The first sheriff's deputy arrived about five minutes later.
He rolled Blanton over, and Combs put his shirt under Blanton's head.
And then he and some of the others prayed.
(3 of 3)


Vehicle tag issue surfaces again
The defense in a cross-examination of Highway Patrol dispatcher Robin Augram worked to raise questions about the events surrounding Blanton's decision to stop Wong.


Prosecutors called her to introduce evidence about Blanton being unable to find information in a police database about the license plate on Wong's truck or the car it was towing.
He told Augram, after she couldn't find information on the tags, that he was stopping the truck because it was suspicious.
This decision was the focus of a weeklong pretrial hearing in July on Wong's motion to suppress evidence collected after the stop on the grounds that Blanton was profiling for drug activity that night and didn't have good reason to stop Wong.
Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey, in a lengthy finding of fact, ruled that Blanton had cause and authority to make the stop.
Poovey, at the outset of the trial, told the defense it wouldn't be allowed to call the stop unconstitutional or inappropriate.
Assistant District Attorney Reid Brown objected at the start of the line of questioning.
Outside the presence of the jury, Brown reminded Poovey about his ruling.
Mark Melrose, one of Wong's attorneys, said he had no plans to call the stop illegal in front of the jury.
He said his questions were only to help the jury understand Augram's testimony about the database and the procedure for checking tags.
The judge said he would allow the defense to cross-examine Augram about the tags and the database because the state had called her as witness and asked similar questions.
The day's final two state witnesses, both troopers, testified about rewinding and playing the video tape in Blanton's patrol car.
The state could soon play the recording, which captured the sounds of the shooting, for the jury.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100909/NEWS/309090030/1007/COLUMNISTS&theme=BLANTON

Trooper Blanton fought to live
By Jon Ostendorff • September 11, 2010

NEWTON — Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr. fought to stay alive in the back of an ambulance the night he was shot, even trying to get out of the stretcher as the rescue vehicle neared Mission Hospital in Asheville.

Paramedic Bill Sease and two others were on board.
Blanton was a “load-and-go” patient at the scene because of his injures, Sease testified Friday in the trial of Edwardo Wong Jr., who is charged with first-degree murder in Blanton's shooting death two years ago.
Wong could face the death penalty if convicted.
Click here for complete coverage of the Edwardo Wong trial in the death of Trooper Blanton.
Click here to watch replays of the Edwardo Won trial sessions.
Sease recalled the trooper responding well to the Ambu bag he was using to pump oxygen into his lungs.
“We stayed with it,” he said. “I kept bagging him in between his breaths until it came to the point where I got in tandem with (his natural breathing).”
Blanton, who was still incoherent after being shot three times, pushed the bag away from his face after his breathing improved. Sease put an oxygen mask on him.
Blanton tried to get up as the ambulance neared the Biltmore Avenue exit on Interstate 40.
“When he would try to get off the stretcher we would talk to him and say ‘Shawn, Shawn lay back, be still,' and he would,” Sease said.
Blanton said nothing during the 20-mile trip from the Canton exit, though Sease believes the stricken trooper was aware of what was going on.
The medics delivered Blanton to the trauma team at the hospital.
“When I walked out there were a couple of troopers walking in and I said to them I think he is going to be OK,” Sease recalled.
But there was something Sease didn't know about Blanton's injuries — something even the doctor who worked on him said was unusual.
The crew took the ambulance back to Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, about 30 minutes away.
(2 of 2)


They were in the re-supply room when they got the call that Blanton had died.
Dr. Terrence Burt was working in the ER that night. He was one of two physicians who operated on Blanton.
When the medics brought the trooper in, he was pale and cold. He couldn't follow commands and was having trouble breathing, Burt said on the witness stand.
Blanton had been shot in the ear, the shoulder and wrist.
He hadn't lost a lot of blood at the scene or in the ambulance and Burt suspected that meant internal bleeding.
He was right. The hospital trauma team found fluid in the left side of his chest. They drained it but that didn't help. Blanton's vital signs were still dropping.
A surgeon opened Blanton's chest and found even more blood. The surgeon found blood around Blanton's heart. The surgeon also noticed damaged blood vessels that would be hard to clamp without causing brain damage.
They tried to shock Blanton's heart back into rhythm. That failed and they pronounced him dead.
Burt and Sease testified for the prosecution on Friday.
The state started its case Tuesday and could wrap up next week. The trial is expected to take a month.
Defense attorney Mark Melrose, on cross examination, asked Burt why the gunshot to the shoulder proved fatal.
The doctor agreed that it was a wound that someone, in the right circumstances, could survive.
But in Blanton's case the bullet ricocheted off bone and fragmented. A piece ended up in Blanton's heart.
Only Blanton's age and fitness level allowed him to live as long as he did after the shooting, the doctor said.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100911/NEWS/309110028/1007/COLUMNISTS&theme=BLANTON

Trooper's Widow Expected To Testify At Wong Trial
Edwardo Wong Accused Of Gunning Down Trooper
By FOX Carolina Staff

POSTED: 11:21 am EDT September 13, 2010
UPDATED: 5:00 pm EDT September 13, 2010

NEWTON, N.C. –– The widow of a North Carolina state trooper who was killed during a traffic stop two years ago could testify at the accused gunman's trial Tuesday.

Edwardo Wong is accused of gunning down North Carolina state Trooper Shawn Blanton during a June 2008 traffic stop.

A FOX Carolina crew at the hearing said that Blanton's widow, Michaela, was expected to take the stand fourth Monday, but that testimony was delayed until at least Tuesday. Her testimony would follows that of the doctor who performed Blanton's autopsy and three other state troopers.

As testimony began Monday, the defense questioned First Sgt. Pat Staggson, one of Shawn Blanton's fellow troopers, as to whether Blanton overstepped his authority or used unnecessary force during Wong's traffic stop. The judge called a recess while he decides if that line of questioning would be allowed.

On Friday, one of the paramedics that rode in the ambulance with Blanton the night he was shot testified he thought the injured trooper would survive. Also, an emergency room doctor who treated Blanton at the hospital said he had not seen injuries like the ones suffered by Blanton in his career.

On Thursday, prosecutors said they would like to show the video three times –– once with video and audio together, a second time with just the video and a third time with an enhanced version of the audio. The defense protested the move, saying prosecutors were showing the video too many times. Prosecutors said they wanted to show the video so many times because it is hard to understand the audio and this would allow jurors to focus on what was being said and the images they would see.

The judge allowed the prosecution to proceed.

Although the shooting is never shown on the video, Blanton can be heard screaming with someone off camera. Several gunshots are heard a short time later. Wong can then be seen getting back into his vehicle and driving away.

A few minutes later, someone can be heard talking to Blanton off camera, telling him to keep breathing and telling him to stay with him.

Blanton's father left the courtroom before the video was shown. Blanton's widow, Michaela, could be seen sobbing after the video was shown.

On Wednesday, Patrick Crowley, the driver who prosecutors have said was the first person to see Blanton after the shooting, took the stand.

Crowley testified that he was stuck in traffic on Interstate 40 in Haywood County when he heard gunshots. He said he pulled up his car behind Blanton's and saw Wong leaning over Blanton's body and going through his pockets. He said that Wong briefly looked up at him before continuing to rummage through Blanton's pockets.

Crowley said that after Wong fled, he jumped out of his car and tried to help Blanton. He said that Blanton was gasping for air with his eyes open but was incoherent. He said that shortly after he started to help Blanton, a Canton police officer arrived and started first aid.

The jury also heard Blanton's final radio transmissions. The tape included Blanton calling in the license plate number on Wong's vehicle then the normal back-and-forth between Blanton and the dispatcher. Finally, the dispatcher called in a "Signal 25," which means officer needs assistance, after she did not hear Blanton respond during radio checks.

On Tuesday, testimony focused on the traffic stop. The defense focused on whether Blanton followed procedure when he tried to put Wong in the back of his patrol car.

Blanton's fellow troopers took the stand and became visibly emotional during their testimony.

"From the call from the radio in Asheville, they had said his call number and he was needing assistance, so I knew going to the scene that it was Trooper Blanton that needed help," said Sgt. Hugh Feinberg, one of the first troopers to arrive at the scene. He continued that when he arrived, Blanton was bleeding, but alive.

Wong's defense team is not denying that Wong was the shooter. They are asking for a lesser charge, because they said Wong did not intend to kill Blanton.

Defense attorneys said that Wong has suffered several head injuries that cause him to make impulsive and reckless decisions. They said an expert will be called to testify on Wong's condition.

Prosecutors said they plan to show jurors the dashcam video from the traffic stop.

If convicted, Wong faces the death penalty.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/news/24987948/detail.html

Anyone taking bets on how long it will take the jury to convict?

I'm going with about 30 minutes.

Trooper Blanton's widow testifies
By Jon Ostendorff • September 14, 2010

NEWTON — Michaela Blanton talked to her husband while he showered and got ready for his shift.

He needed a fresh shirt so she took his badge, name plate and whistle with its chain from the old one and put them on a clean one in the exact places they were supposed to go. Her husband liked to look sharp when he was working.

It was the start of a day much like the last 17 - ever since their son Tye was born.

He worked third shift patrolling the highway and she spent the night at the neonatal intensive care unit with the baby. Tye was born prematurely and was seriously ill. They went home together in the early morning and slept until it was time for him to go to work again.

This day, June 17, 2008, started no differently.

Hours later she wouldn’t remember hitting end on her mobile phone after a trooper called to tell her that her husband had been shot.

“I dropped to my knees on the NICU floor and was screaming,” she said on the witness stand Tuesday.

A few floors below, Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr. was dying.

Odd voice mail
Michaela Blanton testified Tuesday in the trial of the man charged with her husband’s murder.

Edwardo “Eddie” Wong Jr. could face the death penalty if convicted.

Some members of the jury quietly wept as she told of her last day with her husband.

They had planned to meet Trooper Joey Henderson and his wife for dinner. That was the last thing they talked about.

He asked her to send him a text message as soon as she got to the intensive care unit. He always wanted updates on Tye.

She sent him a note as soon as she walked through the doors.

Visitors aren’t allowed to use phones in the neonatal unit. But you can send and receive text messages.

She got good news that night from Tye’s doctor and sent her husband a note.


She didn’t get a response.


Then Henderson called.


Blanton and Henderson were friends from patrol school. Their wives were friends.


She figured it was a call to say he was sorry he couldn’t meet for dinner and to ask about Tye. She didn’t answer.


Henderson never left voice mails so she thought it odd when the icon showed up on her phone.


She left the neonatal unit and checked the message.


“He said very excited ‘Michaela, honey, call me back’ and click there was nothing else,” she recalled. “And of course being a trooper’s wife you got a million things going through your mind.”


She called him back.


“Where are you?” he asked immediately.


He told her to listen. He told her Shawn had been shot in the shoulder. He was going to be OK. He told her to get down stairs to the hospital’s emergency room immediately.

'He's going to be OK'

The hospital staff wouldn’t let her in the operating room.

She could see his foot through a window in the door. An arm was hanging off the stretcher.

Nothing was moving.

She wanted in.

They took her to a room nearby.

Henderson was pacing.

“He’s going to be OK,” she recalled him saying. “He was going to be OK.”

She begged for news and finally a nurse came out to give her a little bit of an update.

The nurse said she couldn’t go in because her husband was intubated.

That didn’t bother her. She was very familiar with intubation. Her son was intubated upstairs.

“I can deal with that,” she recalled.

Then the nurse said his chest was also open.

She didn’t understand exactly what that meant.

“Please just let me tell him I am here and I love him,” she begged.

She fought to see him

Blanton had been shot three times after stopping Wong on Interstate 40 near Canton.

Wong’s defense team doesn’t dispute that their client fired the gun that night. They have argued he’s not guilty of first-degree murder because he didn’t intend to kill the trooper.

Their questions of state witnesses have indicated they’ll argue he only shot Blanton to avoid arrest. He took his gun to disarm him, the defense attorneys have said, and tossed his keys over the guardrail so the trooper couldn’t give chase.

A bullet hit Blanton in his wrist as he threw up an arm while Wong was firing. That bullet ended up in his lower shoulder muscle. Another hit his hear, cutting a piece out as it passed through.

The bullet that killed Blanton fragmented after colliding with his shoulder bone. It split in two pieces. One ended up in his heart.

His chest filled with blood. There was nothing doctors could do.

But his wife didn’t know any of this as she waited outside the emergency room.

“I heard them call clear,” she said. “After seeing my father pass away, I knew what that meant.”

She heard the sound of the paddles as the doctors tried to shock his exposed heart back to life.

A few seconds later a doctor came out and told her there was nothing more they could do.

She got up and charged for the operating room door. Nurses and troopers piled on to keep her back but she kicked and punched and they relented.

Inside, she saw her husband dead on the table.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100914/NEWS01/100914037&theme=BLANTON

I don't remember the exact quotes but there were comments along those lines.

I haven't seen it mentioned in these articles but there was another shootout iirc when he was captured a few miles down the road.

He had the troopers firearm in the cab along with plates off the vehicles.