May 12, 2021 5 min read

Anthony Ward was trying to leave after a fight had broken out between his friends and a stranger inside a movie theater when he heard the man call him the N-word and then felt a handgun pressed against his left temple.

“You think you’re so tough,” Ward testified hearing from Chris Williams, who is on trial this week and accused of attacking a group of teenage boys before shooting Ward in the leg as they exited the theater.

Ward testified Tuesday that he had two options when he felt the metal barrel against his skin: Either run for the exit and possibly get shot or wrestle for the gun.

“It was either fight or flight,” said Ward, who was 17 at the time. “I would have to fight him or try to make a run for the exit. I thought I was going to die if I ran for the exit.”

Ward demonstrated on Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte how he pulled Williams’ arm down to make sure the gun was pointed at the ground. Moments later, the gun fired a bullet into Ward’s right calf muscle, causing his leg to buckle as the two toppled onto the ground, he testified.

“It made me feel threatened,” Ward said of the incident in the tight hallway leading to the movie theater’s exit door. “I was scared for my life, I guess, and nervous.”

Williams, 55, of Waynesburg, is facing charges of aggravated assault, terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and harassment in connection with the shooting on March 23, 2019, at the multiplex movie theater at Washington Crown Center mall in North Franklin Township.

The jury heard testimony from Ward and three of his friends, along with a woman who recorded a grainy cellphone video of the brawl inside the theater. Ward and his friends testified they had snuck into the late-night showing of “Us” and were laughing during a climatic scene near the end when Williams shouted at them, “Shut the (expletive) up. This isn’t your living room.”

Williams then got out of his seat and walked over to the group of teenage boys to confront them. After words were exchanged, Ward testified that Williams punched his friend, Lamar Wormsley, in the face, busting his lip. Wormsley testified he returned with a punch and the melee ensued with the group striking Williams as they defended their friend. They testified Williams got another friend, Anthony Thomas, into a headlock as the group pushed Williams over a row of seats.

The group then left, but was followed by Williams, who confronted Ward alone in the theater hallway near the exit door.

A cellphone video recorded by Brandi Noble, who was watching the movie with her younger sister, showed little of the fight or who threw the first punch, but Williams is heard telling the group to “Shut the (expletive) up” seconds before the commotion from the brawl overwhelms the recording.

Noble testified that the boys and others in the theater were laughing during a humorous climatic scene, which appeared to bother Williams.

“It wasn’t unnecessary talking,” Noble testified of the group’s chatter during the movie.

“He was angry,” Noble testified to how Williams reacted to the group. “It was loud. It was aggressive. He was mad.”

She then began recording with her cellphone as the incident escalated.

“I could see him up in (the group’s) face screaming,” Noble testified.

She and her sister then left the movie theater to get security after punches were thrown. When they went back to retrieve her sister’s cellphone that was left behind on the seat, they heard more commotion behind a closed door in the theater’s exit hallway followed by a “pop” sound. She then heard Ward shouting in pain from the gunshot wound.

The entire episode lasted about one minute, according to the cellphone video.

Ward testified that he had a limp for more than a month, and still has bullet fragments in his leg despite most of the slug being removed during surgery.

The defense team for Williams tried to point out inconsistencies in statements made by Ward and Wormsley during initial interviews with police investigators. Defense attorney Al Lindsay noted that Ward did not tell state police investigators in his first interview eight hours after the incident that Williams had used a racial slur, or that he had punched Williams during the brawl.

Ward said he was on pain medication after the shooting and did not remember all of the details until later.

“Most of the important details were scattered,” Ward said of his initial recollection of the night’s events while on pain medication.

But the majority of testimony from the group of friends was consistent that Williams confronted them in an aggressive manner and threw the first punch.

The defense team for Williams, who is on leave from his job as an SCI-Greene prison corrections officer, has maintained that the group attacked him and he was acting in self defense when he pulled his weapon.

Prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s office are expected to call six more witnesses today, and could rest their case by the end of the day. Opening statements in the case began Monday.