Testimony continued Wednesday in the trial of James Stuart, a Deptford Township police officer accused of shooting his friend in the face. Watch video
WOODBURY -- When Dawn Law, a paramedic with Inspira Medical Group, got to the scene, she saw a man slumped against the couch with his hand still on a bottle of beer. The gun was nowhere in sight.
Testimony continued Wednesday in the trial of James Stuart, a Deptford Township police officer accused of shooting his friend in the face. In the second day of court, Law said she found the victim, 27-year-old David Compton, with a hand still on his drink on the morning of Jan. 5, 2013.
"It looked like he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch," said the paramedic, who got to the scene about 10 minutes after Stuart reported the incident using a police dispatch line. Police were already on the property. "There's a beer bottle in his lap with his left hand still on the bottle."
To Compton's right, Law said, was his cellphone. It looked as though he had just dropped it. Except for a hole in his cheek, his wounds seemed minimal.
"There was no blood on him," Law told Assistant Prosecutor Dana Anton. "You could see the wound in his cheek...there was no exit wound.
"Usually when we get to the scene of a shooting we ask, 'Where's the gun? Who fired it?'" said Law. "The officers didn't have those answers for us, so I focused my attention on the patient."
There were also no burns near the wound, Law said, which meant the gun was likely not close enough to Compton's face to burn the skin when it discharged. And although there were no other bottles immediately surrounding Compton's unconscious body, the room had "an odor of stale beer, like a bar," according to the paramedic.
RELATED: Trial for N.J. cop charged with murder to start this week
Fearing that the lack of an exit wound meant Compton could have a spinal injury, Law, along with her partner, paramedic Mark Garlit, put Compton on a longboard with a neck brace and got him out of the house with the help of several EMTs. Law and Garlit secured permission from a doctor to forego a trip to Inspira, and headed straight for the trauma center at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.
"We thought there would be a better chance of a good outcome" if Compton went directly to Cooper, Law said. Compton briefly went into cardiac arrest while the paramedics and EMTs took him to the hospital, but Law and Garlit got his heart started again. Even so, Compton died six days later.
Stuart was charged with murder, aggravated manslaughter and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.
Garlit told defense attorney John Eastlack that he found a shell casing on the sofa where Compton was lying unresponsive, but repeated Law's assertion that medical personnel did not find large amounts of blood at the scene. Emergency responders had to suction blood out of his airway in the ambulance.
"Did you see anything to indicate that someone had attempted to render aid before you arrived?" Anton asked Law. In a recording of Stuart's emergency call, dispatchers can be heard instructing him to put pressure on Compton's wound with a clean towel.
When Law said she had not seen signs that Stuart tried to help, Eastlack pointed out that no one could have seen what Stuart did before aid arrived.
"You don't know as you sit here today what aid may have been rendered," he said. "You weren't there."
Law and Garlit were followed by Deptford police officers who described medical personnel putting paper bags on Compton's hands to preserve any forensic evidence that might have been left on his skin. Stuart was later driven to Inspira Medical Center in Woodbury for a blood test. A detective with the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office who helped collect evidence described the discovery of a pistol on a dresser in a bedroom of Stuart's house.
Court resumed on Wednesday afternoon with two significant witnesses scheduled to testify.
Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.