Ellis Royster
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Opening arguments began Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of gunning down a 2-year old boy. Less than an hour into the trial the toddler’s father was dragged from the courtroom after an emotional outburst.
The little boy’s mother was the first witness called by the prosecution Tuesday. Arminsher Glen said she sent her son, Amias Robinson, to his cousins who were babysitting him in the Hampshire Hills community in north Charlotte.
“She said, ‘You need to come to the hospital,’ and I said, ‘Why,’ and she said, ‘Just come,’” said Glen, describing her sister’s call about the shooting.
“The girls took Amias to the candy lady and he got shot,” she said.
Assistant District Attorney Bill Bunting told the jury that Amias died because of a dispute over a $10 bag of marijuana.
He said on the night of the child’s death, Royster fired at least 11 shots at a passing car. Royster believed it held the man who had run off with money Royster’s friend Shariff Baker had given him for drugs.
One of the 9 mm bullets hit Amias, who was sitting in his stroller nearby.
“Only 2 years old and he never had a chance,” Bunting said.
Baker, he said, initially told police that Royster had fired the shots.
Two other bystanders, however, had identified Alexander as the shooter, and Baker later changed his account to single out Alexander.
Bunting said Baker did so because Baker got scared “and told police what he thought they wanted to hear.”
Later, after police began interviewing new witnesses, Bunting said Baker “told them what he had told them all along” – that Royster was the killer.
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who answered the Aug. 12, 2010, call on Eastbrook Road described the bullet wound in Amias Robinson’s neck.
His father, sitting on the front first row of the spectator seats, listened to an officer describe the injuries the lept to his feet charging at Ellis, cursing and threatening to hurt him. “You killed my son!”, Charles Robinson yelled at the defendant.
Deputies and the homicide investigator who worked the case restrained him and pulled him out of the courtroom. Eventually he was escorted off Mecklenburg County Courthouse property.
The judge said he will allow Mr. Robinson to return to the courtroom Wednesday but warned that the next time he will send him to jail if there is an outburst.
