Opening statements and the testimony of the prosecution’s first witness completed the first day of Peter Watts’ trial reports the Port Huron Times Herald.
The Toronto sf author is charged with assaulting U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Andrew Beaudry when stopped at the Blue Water Bridge while returning to Canada.
The prosecution began with a timeline of events leading up to the struggle between officers and Watts, when Watts allegedly tried to choke Beaudry.
Defense attorney Douglas Mullkoff told the jury Watts was repeatedly hit, then pepper-sprayed “because he didn’t move fast enough” and that he is not guilty of any crime.
The first prosecution witness, Customs and Border Protection Officer Julie Behrendt, said that Watts was the subject of a random stop, and that he didn’t comply with any commands until after he was pepper-sprayed.
When the trial resumes March 17 the prosecution is expected to call three more witnesses.
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His “testimony” makes them sound like three physical Barney Fifes struggling with Hercules.
Poor, poor pitiful them. Mr. Watts is lucky he wasn’t gunshot in the back of the head at the nape of the neck as “suicide” while “resisting arrest”.