A man who saw his best friend get shot in the head and bleed to death on a Greenwich Village street testified Monday at the trial of his accused killer.
Danny Robinson, 34, told jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court that he and victim Mark Carson, 32, were walking down the street when Elliot Morales pelted them with anti-gay slurs.
“He walked between us and said, “You all look like gay wrestlers,’” Robinson recalled Morales barking May 18, 2013. “He was saying things like ‘f—got’ and slurs, like angry slurs.”
Robinson said he was “shocked” by the taunts but Carson kept saying, “He’s not going to do anything.” Then Morales put his hand by his belt and whipped out a silver Taurus .38-caliber firearm.
“Put the gun down,” Robinson pleaded.
“He (Carson) was very scared. He froze. I know him, I know his emotions.”
Then Morales shot Carson in the face. “His body jerked and fell to the ground, he fell on his back,” Robinson recalled. Morales fled but cops quickly caught up to him.
Morales, 36, who is representing himself, insisted in opening remarks he’s no bigot – although he’s charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime and other raps.
“I’ve made my share of mistakes,” he said. “That doesn’t make me a bad person. It just means that I’m human. What happened was not an act of intent or hate on my part. I’m not a bigot of any type.”
ADA Shannon Lucey told jurors that Morales was indeed a bigot.
“Mark Carson was a total stranger to Elliot Morales and he was killed for no other reason other than because he was gay – no other reason,” she said.
“He aimed and he deliberately shot into the head of a gay man instantly ending his short, unfinished life.”