Man pleads not guilty to murder in shootings

Published 2:07 pm Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The man whom King County Prosecutors say shot and killed two people in the parking lot outside the Sports Page Tavern two years ago pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday morning to two counts of second-degree murder.

Cleanthony Jimerson, 29, made his first court appearance at the Regional Justice Center in Kent after waiving extradition and agreeing to return to King County from the Texas jail where he was being held.

Jimerson, who himself was seriously wounded in the melee outside of the tavern, appeared in a wheelchair. Court records indicate friends of the two dead men, Nicholas Greer, 24, and Lorenzo Duncan, 23, shot Jimerson shortly after he allegedly stood above the men as they lay helpless on the ground and fired bullets into their heads and bodies.

His trial date is set for June 18 at the RJC.

Prosecuting Attorney Jessica Berliner said that at trial she expects to amend the charges to two counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors have also charged Jimerson, a convicted felon at the time of the shootings, with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.

The King County Prosecutor’s office in late April formally charged Jimerson with two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Lindsay, 24, Duncan, 23, and, as a convicted felon at the time of the shootings, with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.

Also killed in the early morning melee was Antuan Greer, 21. But according to the affidavit for determination of probable cause, the document in which Auburn Police lay out their case against Jimerson, a stray bullet, fired by an as-yet unknown person, probably killed Greer.

Bail remains at $5 million.

Defense attorney Teri Rogers Kemp asked in court that the media not be allowed to photograph Mr. Jimerson in any way so as not to prejudice a potential jury pool. The judge, after weighing the request, finally allowed photos to be taken of the wheelchair-bound Jimerson below the shoulders, leaving photographable the patch of his red jail shirt visible between the leather back of the chair and the seat.

Supporters and family of Mr. Jimerson reacted when Ms. Berliner claimed that he, Jimerson had admitted to shooting one of the victims.

“What? What?!” a woman’s voice cried out.

“She’s lying!” another said of the prosecuting attorney.

Rogers Kemp asked that the judge not consider the claim of admission.

According to what witnesses told detectives, the argument that led to the fatal shootings started between two women on the tavern’s dance floor, one of them among the group that numbered Duncan, Lindsay and Greer.

The physical fight began outside in the parking lot, five minutes after closing, as about 100 patrons milled out and security got busy directing people to their cars to clear the lot.

Loud talk outside from one of the women involved in the previous argument  led to a fistfight between  men in the two groups, according to the affidavit. According to the affidavit, a few of the fighters went south of the parking lot and out onto Auburn Way North to fight and the rest began moving north through the parking lot, toward where the fatal shots were later fired.

Several witnesses told police that a woman first fired a warning shot into the air to break up the fight. Hearing that, a witness said, a man, perhaps believing that shots were being fired for real, ran to his car across the lot and grabbed a gun. An estimated 20-to-30 seconds after the warning shot, multiple individuals pulled out their handguns and began firing.

Although witness accounts of the fatal shootings vary widely, a number of witnesses identified or described Jimerson as the man who had shot and killed the two men.