By Nate Rawlings
Taj Mcintyre emigrated from Jamaica with a student visa. He was 21 when he left his family behind. He put himself through school and was a hard worker. There was one small incident where he was caught stealing from a clothing store. He was young, admitted his guilt, and attended classes in lieu of jail time.
Mcintyre left Jamaica without telling his parents he was gay. They still don’t know. It has been his secret for almost 30 years. On January 4, 2007, Mcintyre went to the Rockwell Lounge in Fort Greene.
Now Mcintyre sits silently in a Brooklyn courtroom, listening while his lawyer tells his story. He hopes it is a story that will keep him from prison.
Some facts of the trial are beyond dispute: there was a small scuffle at the nightclub. The complaining witness walked away blinded in one eye. Witnesses for the prosecution saw the melee one way; witnesses for the defense saw it differently.
This is what the prosecution says happened:
Duvall Webster and Leonard Oliver arrived at the Rockwell Lounge and Mcintyre gave Oliver a hug. Webster was a bit jealous. Oliver was his boyfriend and he didn’t know the man who greeted him. He stopped caring quickly and they went about their evening.
A few hours later a small scuffle broke near the smoking area. Webster went to help. A beer bottle came flying through the air and smashed into his face. It broke the bones around his right eye socket and the cavity began filling with blood. Webster didn’t think he was hurt very badly. He told the police he didn’t see who threw the bottle. Witnesses told the police that a young black man hurled the bottle at Webster’s face as he ran out the club’s door. No one knew the man’s name.
Webster’s injury worsened and he lost sight in his right eye. He went to see doctors and they told him he would never see from that eye again. Police found the man who threw the bottle five months after Webster was blinded. Webster testified in the trial that he didn’t see who threw the bottle. He couldn’t identify Mcintyre in court. That didn’t matter. Other witnesses did. Mcintyre blinded Duvall Webster.
“You promised not to decide this case on sympathy,” Assistant District Attorney Chris Eribo told the jury in his summation. “Ask only one question: did the defendant act in self-defense. The evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense.”
This is Mcintyre’s version:
Leonard Oliver arrived at the Rockwell Lounge that January night with his boyfriend, Duvall Webster. Taj recognized Oliver and greeted him with a hug. Oliver didn’t know Mcintyre’s name; they were mere acquaintances. Webster was jealous and yet he walked away. For a while.
Later on in the evening four men surrounded Taj. They wanted to kill him. If he didn’t defend himself he would certainly die. He picked up a beer bottle and swung it back and forth to fend off the attackers. Taj ran for the exit and the bottle flew out of his hand. It sailed through the air but he never saw where it landed. He didn’t mean to injure anyone and ran out the door to escape his attackers.
Mcintyre didn’t go to the police.
“He was scared, and justifiably so,” his lawyer, Wayne Wiseman, told the jury. “He feared he would get locked up. The winner gets locked up; the loser gets to be the complaining witness.”
The police found Mcintyre eventually and asked what had happened. He didn’t request a lawyer. He wrote a statement where he admitted picking up the bottle to defend himself. He didn’t mean to harm anyone.
“Whether you spend an hour or two or you can go through every word that was said, you’ll come to the same conclusion,” Wiseman said in his closing statement. “Taj Mcintyre is a scared, frightened little boy who’s suffered through this case. He will suffer, perhaps for the rest of his life.”
The jury will reconvene Monday morning to begin their deliberations. Meanwhile, Mcintyre remains free on bail.
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