May 14, 2021 4 min read

From the beginning, the 2019 shooting inside Washington Crown Center mall’s movie theater had racial undertones with a white man involved in a fight with a group of Black teens, before he pulled out his handgun and shot one of the youths in the leg.

In the weeks that followed, protests were organized calling for transparency and justice after investigators released few details and no charges were filed against the accused gunman in the case.

Anthony Ward, who is Black and was 17 at the time of the shooting, was struck in the leg and still has bullet fragments left in his body more than two years after the incident. It was more than a month before Chris Williams, 55, of Waynesburg, was charged in connection with the fight and subsequent shooting on March 23, 2019.

While race has played little role in Williams’ trial this week on various charges, including aggravated assault, it was at the surface Thursday afternoon during closing arguments before the jury of eight women and four men began deliberations.

Williams’ defense attorney, Al Lindsay, told the all-white jury that the six teens weren’t children, despite all of them being under the age of 18 at the time of the incident. He said the evidence showed the group overwhelmed his client and harshly beat him after he told them to quiet down during the late-night showing of the movie “Us.”

“These aren’t like any kids you and I know,” Lindsay said, prompting Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte to demand for a sidebar to address the comment.

When it was Schulte’s turn to close, he launched into Lindsay and the way he characterized the juveniles, who were all 16 or 17 at the time of the incident.

“Is this 2021, or is this 1930?” Schulte asked. “How offensive.”

While Schulte attempted to steer the case away from a “Black and white” issue, race was at the forefront during the closing arguments.

Schulte suggested the defense’s strategy was to distract from the facts of the case, which he said showed Williams, who is a corrections officer at SCI-Greene prison near Waynesburg, felt disrespected when the teens didn’t listen to his request for them to “shut the (expletive) up.” He then took matters into his own hands when he punched one of them in the face, Schulte said.

“The defendant didn’t like getting talked back to,” Schulte said. “He wasn’t used to getting back to. And he snapped.”

After the group of teens fought back, leaving Williams badly beaten in the theater, he pulled out his handgun and followed them out of the theater to get revenge, Schulte claimed. That’s when he pointed his handgun at Ward’s face and shot him in the right leg when there was a struggle for the gun, Schulte said.

“The behavior by the defendant in this case was completely unhinged. Who acts like this?” Schulte said.

“This was an intentional, unhinged revenge shooting,” Schulte added. “He started the fight and went to the hallway to finish it.”

Lindsay maintained that Williams was the victim in the fight, and he claims the shooting was an accident after he pulled his gun in self defense after the initial fight.

“This was a vicious beating,” Lindsay said.

He suggested that the teens appeared to leave the theater, but they really gathered in an exit hallway waiting for a “second bite of the apple” to assault Williams, who pulled his handgun and pointed it at Ward.

“It was his belief the only reason they could be there was to beat him again,” Lindsay said.

The jury deliberated for about four hours Thursday before Judge Valarie Costanzo sent them home for the night. The jury is expected to return at 9 a.m. today to resume deliberations.

Williams faces two felony counts of aggravated assault, along with charges of simple assault, reckless endangerment, terroristic threats and disorderly conduct.