Defense: Red Rose shooting was not motivated by race

What happened inside the Red Rose Restaurant & Lounge in the early morning hours of July 21 was unrelated to the tragic events that happened outside the bar.

That’s according to the attorney for James Saylor, who’s been accused of criminal homicide in the shooting death of Chad Merrill around 1 a.m. on that Saturday.

Attorney George Margetas, representing Saylor, did not argue against the homicide charge or just-added summary offenses of recklessly endangering another person and accidents involving damage to another vehicle.

Instead, his arguments at Thursday morning’s preliminary hearing in the courtroom of District Judge Robert A. Eckenrode in East Manchester Township focused on two additional summary charges: harassment and ethnic intimidation.

“With things that have been going on around here in York lately the last couple months, it’s really easy to say my client was motivated by some kind of hate crime,” Margetas said after the hearing. “Or that his malice was motivated because he doesn’t like African-Americans or anything like that.”

Merrill, 25, died shortly after a single gunshot wound to the chest. The arresting officer, Sgt. Justin Golder of the Hellam Township Police Department, testified that the autopsy showed the bullet from the .45-caliber pistol belonging to Saylor pierced Merrill’s lungs and heart and struck his spinal column before exiting his body.

Saylor, 24, of Lower Windsor Township, was shown on Red Rose’s surveillance firing his weapon twice, according to testimony.

In his testimony, Golder said Saylor had been removed from the bar by owner Nick Spagnolo after a racially explosive conversation with Jerrell Grandison-Douglas, a 25-year-old African-American man who’d just arrived and sat at the bar two seats from Saylor.

In testimony from Grandison-Douglas, who was the first witness called by Chief Deputy Prosecutor Seth Bortner, Saylor was said to have used a racial slur five or six times after Grandison-Douglas sat and ordered his drinks.

“Who let these [racial slur] into the bar?” was how it started, according to Grandison-Douglas, who testified he arrived at the Red Rose with another African-American male, for whom he’d provided a ride from the Tourist Inn bar in Hellam Township.

But the conversation, Grandison-Douglas said, was just between him and Saylor. Despite Grandison-Douglas trying to alleviate the situation, Saylor did not let up with his verbal aggression and racial slurs, he said.

More: Grandison-Douglas says he believes the bullet was meant for him

Golder later testified that, through witness statements, police learned a man named Brady Myer sat between Grandison-Douglas and Saylor and was trying to diffuse the situation.

Around the time Spagnolo was removing Saylor, Merrill tapped his friend, Grandison-Douglas, on the shoulder and attempted to calm him, suggesting that he was “not those things,” “not to worry” and to “let it go.”

“He [Merrill] was calm as always, with a smile on his face,” Grandison-Douglas testified.

Again, the events from inside the bar were not disputed by the defense, though Margetas suggested afterward Saylor’s level of intoxication is “going to play a major role in this case. … He was definitely drunk.”

Golder testified he’d heard Saylor was at the Glad Crab earlier that evening, then visited a friend at her home in Hellam Township before heading to the Red Rose.

Once he was kicked out of the Red Rose, the surveillance video showed Saylor trying unsuccessfully to get into the wrong dark-colored pickup truck, though there were no known witnesses outside the bar at this time, according to testimony.

After he realized his mistake and began walking toward his 2010 Chevy Silverado pickup truck, Golder said surveillance showed Saylor retrieve a weapon from the crotch of his pants and fire a shot toward the Red Rose before arriving at his own vehicle.

He entered his Silverado and soon attempted to leave in one direction, then pulled back into his parking spot and tried to leave in a different direction.

That’s when, according to testimony from Uber driver Paul Sowers Jr., who’d just arrived on scene for a pickup, Saylor came nose-to-nose with Sowers’ Mazda sedan.

Around that time, Merrill, who Grandison-Douglas said was going out to his own truck to retrieve something, exited the Red Rose.

Golder and Sowers said it seemed like Merrill was perhaps waiting for Saylor’s truck to leave before walking to his own truck and was near Saylor’s driver’s side door, maybe two feet away, Sowers said.

In a matter of seconds, surveillance video showed Saylor discharge his weapon into Merrill’s chest, causing Merrill to fall backward while Saylor wrecked into Sowers’ car before quickly leaving the scene in his truck.

Saylor was picked up later at his parents’ home in Lower Windsor Township by York Area Regional Police after several witnesses inside the bar said he was the last to leave before Merrill.

Saylor has been in York County Prison since that weekend on the charge of homicide, and Golder described him as “tired and disheveled” but also “cooperative” in his interview roughly six to eight hours after the incident.

Again, Margetas did not dispute the conversation at the bar, nor what the surveillance footage revealed after Saylor was removed from the bar.

His final argument at Thursday’s hearing was against harassment and ethnic intimidation charges, suggesting Saylor would have needed to be physical with Grandison-Douglas for the prosecution to prove those additional charges.

“They had a disagreement, and [Grandison-Douglas] didn’t like what [Saylor] said to him,” Margetas said afterward. “And I don’t blame him, quite frankly. … But I don’t think it raises a level of ethnic intimidation. Nor [do I] think it raises to harassment either. … To say that that’s what caused everything is not true.”

Bortner, though, argued that what transpired inside the bar absolutely fits the definition of harassment and ethnic intimidation.

Grandison-Douglas also testified as much, saying during cross examination that while Saylor never made a physical threat, “if you’re demeaning me as a person, backing me into a corner, that is a threat.”

Bortner agreed, expressing surprise that Margetas would essentially concede the homicide charge while focusing on two summary charges.

“To me it was a straightforward case of both harassment, and that harassment was done because of the race of Mr. Douglas,” Bortner said after the hearing.

Eckenrode ordered Saylor held for court following the preliminary hearing.

Formal arraignment has been scheduled for Oct. 5.