Former gang member changes story, says he didn't see Major Howard's killing

Robert "RJ" Scott writes a message to 3-year-old Major Howard on an East 113th Street utility pole on Sep. 16, 2015, the morning after the boy was shot and killed. Scott testified in court Wednesday that he did not actually see the shooting or the man accused of killing the boy, Donnell Lindsey, with a gun, a reversal from statements he gave to Cleveland police in January 2016.(Brandon Blackwell, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The self-described former gang member who previously identified Donnell "Nell" Lindsey as a suspect in Major Howard's slaying testified Wednesday that he never actually saw anyone shoot the 3-year-old boy.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Anna Faraglia spent hours prodding Robert "RJ" Scott III over his reversal from statements he gave to investigators in 2016. Faraglia eventually thrust a picture of the boy's body in front of Scott and demanded the truth.
"Don't you think you owe it to [Major] to tell the jury who shot this little boy?" Faraglia asked. "Did Nell shoot this little boy?"

Scott, who had a diamond tattooed on his face in Major's honor after his death, hung his head to avoid the picture. He fought back a whimper as he answered "I didn't see him shoot no gun." Scott's testimony, which prosecutors had expected, was a setback in the state's case against Lindsey, who is charged with aggravated murder and dozens of other charges in the Sept. 15, 2015 drive-by killing on East 113th Street near Union Avenue.

Lindsey was in the passenger seat of a Toyota Yaris and unleashed a spray of bullets meant for Dexter "Deck" Mangham, prosecutors said. Bullets pierced the parked car where Major and his mother's friend sat watching videos on a cellphone, and one struck the child's chest, prosecutors said.

Mangham was unharmed in the shooting, but was gunned down weeks later near Euclid Avenue and East 4th Street in downtown Cleveland.

Scott gave interviews to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer Publishing Co. in the days after the shooting and recalled trying to save the boy's life on the way to the hospital. Scott and Mangham were each members of the street gang Benham Boys, which is affiliated with the notorious Bloods and was in the middle of a feud with a rival gang that started over a woman, Scott said. Scott said he was sitting on his porch across the street from where Major sat in the car. He had been smoking marijuana, taking Percocet and drinking Hennessy that afternoon when gunfire erupted about 7 p.m.
He said he dived to the floor and heard the pop of more than 30 gunshots.

Donnell Lindsey. (Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)

He looked up and said he saw Mangham running with a handgun, as someone screamed that a baby had been shot in the car. He ran over to the car and applied pressure to the boy's wound, then rode in a car with him to the Cleveland Clinic.

Scott came forward to police on Jan. 7, 2016, and, asking to remain anonymous, said he could identify the shooter. He told homicide detectives that he saw a white car come driving up the street and saw Lindsey holding a gun out of the passenger side of the car just before the shooting. He then picked Lindsey's photograph out of a lineup as one of the gunman in the car. A second man he identified to police, Aaron Dunnings, was also charged in the shooting, but prosecutors dropped those charges last year.

Scott backpedaled those statements in a court hearing this February and said he did not actually see Lindsey with a gun. He said he heard that information from other people who refused to come forward, and thought he owed it to Major to relay that information to police to help their case.
Scott repeated that explanation on Wednesday.

"I was Major's voice," he said.
Scott, shackled in an orange prison jumpsuit as he serves out a 6-year sentence in a July 2015 shooting, came off Wednesday as a man torn between the "no-snitch" code of the streets and the pain of watching his friend's 3-year-old son dying in his arms.

He put his life in danger by speaking to reporters and admitting to being at the scene of the shooting, he said. He further endangered himself by appearing in open court. Faraglia then stated that his life was equally as important as Major's, but Scott quickly disagreed.
"I'd rather it be me than that baby," he said. "That baby could have been anything, a doctor, a lawyer or a judge. He had every opportunity to be a superstar."

One of Lindsey's lawyers, Assistant Cuyahoga County Public Defender Jack Greene, visited Scott in the Trumbull Correctional Institution sometime after he identified Lindsey but before he appeared in the February court hearing, Scott said.

Scott said Greene told him he thought Lindsey was innocent, and the two talked about witness protection and if Scott felt he would be in danger if he returned home.

Faraglia pounced on the revelation.
"You picked out Donnell Lindsey on Jan. 7, [2016], then all of a sudden when you're paid a visit and talked about witness protection, you change your story?" she asked. "Where's your conviction? You got scared, didn't you, buddy?"

Kevin Spellacy, another lawyer on Lindsey's case, later asked if Greene ever  scared Scott, and asked him to change his story during the visit.

Scott looked down toward the floor.
"I mean, no," he replied.

Scott is one of several witnesses prosecutors are expected to call. Testimony resumed Thursday morning and is expected to wrap up next week.


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