BUFFALO, N.Y. — Policy versus reality was the focus of testimony offered in Erie County court Friday during day two of a trial for a New York state trooper charged with manslaughter.
Trooper Anthony Nigro shot and killed James Huber of Pennsylvania in downtown Buffalo after a lengthy high-speed car chase back in 2022. The defense has said he feared for his life and the lives of others, while prosecutors from the NYS Attorney General's Office argue he was acting out of frustration.
Nigro waived his right to a jury trial last fall so ultimately Judge James Bargnesi will rule if trooper Nigro is guilty of manslaughter or not. The court has ten days on the calendar for the trial.
During Day 2, it was supervising state troopers who offered their perspective from the witness stand.
The prosecution probed current state police Sgt. Stephen Kosowski and retired Sgt. David Schwing about how Trooper Nigro's actions on Feb. 12, 2022, compared to state police guidelines.
Attempting to identify gaps in procedure that Judge Bargnesi could weigh when making his decision, along with testimony from other troopers about how things play out daily.
Retired Sgt. Schwing was asked by the lead prosecutor to read directly from the state police rulebook, which indicates that Trooper Nigro should have confirmed over the radio that he heard the chase was terminated.
Schwing added, however, that while Nigro did not acknowledge, the then-sergeant didn't expect him to, testifying that the trooper leading the chase, Andrew Lipuma, who testified on Day 1, had already done so.
Nigro's defense attorney, Andrew Quinn, made a point during cross examination to ask several troopers what they believed standard procedure to be.
All of them testified the same as Sgt. Schwing, as well as stated that when a chase ends, sharing location is not required, even when patrolling for a suspect alone as Trooper Nigro did.
The prosecution questioned why Nigro never called for backup, or why the chase wasn't ended after two failed attempts using spike strips to stop the driver, who was reportedly running cars off the road at over 100 mph.
Schwing testified that it was dangerous and that the driver needed to be stopped.
He added that when he called Trooper Nigro to ask about his vehicle being struck by the driver during the chase, he trusted that the 15-year veteran would act accordingly and did not sound angry or upset, when he told him he spotted the suspect in downtown Buffalo.
As seen on his body-worn camera, Trooper Nigro then ordered the driver, James Huber of Pennsylvania, with his service pistol drawn to get out of his vehicle, reached into the tan Chevy Malibu, but was thrown backward when the car rapidly reversed.
In that same instance, two gunshot were fired and the car, with Huber inside, hit a guardrail and flipped into a degraded parking ramp at the nearby One M&T Plaza.
Huber died at the scene after prosecutors said he was shot in the face.
Trooper Kenneth Filipski testified Friday that Nigro told him shortly the incident that he had reached into the vehicle to try and shut it off.