Strange outcome in cop shooting case

No one seems to know what is next after a jury found a man innocent of charges of felonious assault and ``undecided' on complicity for his role in a highly publicized shootout with police on the East Side in 2005.

Duniek Christian was the third defendant tried for the incident, where a car full of men were alleged to have peppered three police cars with automatic weapons fire before melting away into the nearby woods. No one was injured, but the quartet in the car eluded a massive manhunt before being captured the next day.

Christian's defense was that he was forced to be the driver of the car police tried to pull over, just a poor innocent guy who was threatened at gunpoint to drive.

However, I saw him in Municipal Court days after the incident for a preliminary hearing and his behavior was far from that of being a victim. Him and two of his accomplices yukked it up the entire time, made gang signs to friends in the audience and obscene gestures to television cameras in the hallway at the conclusion of the hearing.

What is most puzzling is one of the defendants tried before Christian, Jumal Edwards, who is serving 97 years, scuttled his appeal chances by testifying that he did threaten Christian. He is appealing his conviction because he claims he was not there.

Christian is still in jail and Judge James Evans will have a hearing today to decide what if anything will be done next. You can bet his lawyer wants him out of jail. That's about the only sure thing that anyone knows for sure right now.