Greyhound bus shooter found not guilty of 1st degree murder, guilty of 2nd degree murder (2024)

OROVILLE, Calif. - After more than four days of deliberation, a jury found Asaahdi Coleman not guilty of first-degree murder.

This is for the 2022 shooting in Oroville inside a Greyhound bus.

The jury did find Coleman guilty of second-degree murder.

The jury also found Coleman guilty on only 1 out of 4 counts of attempted murder.

In February 2022, Coleman opened fire on a Greyhound bus in Oroville - leaving one person dead and wounding four others - including an 11-year-old girl.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey said as a result of the verdict on Thursday, Coleman faces 74 years to life.

Because of the "Youthful Offender Parole Law", which applies to murderers under 26, Coleman will be eligible for parole after 25 years, Ramsey said.

Coleman's sentencing is on May 31 at 8:30 a.m.

Jury selection for this case began on March 25 and 12 jurors were eventually selected for this case.

Then, opening statements were delivered on April 5.

The prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Mark Murphy, presented his opening statement. Then, the defense, led by John Paul Brennan, who is representing Coleman, chose not to deliver an opening statement.

Next, a witness took the stand. The first witness was a woman named Mari. She said she was the AMPM clerk working the night of the shooting when everyone ran into the store after the shooting broke out. She said she called 911 and tried to help the victims.

On April 8, survivors testified.

This included Robert Farber and Rose Whitley -- two of the five passengers shot on the Greyhound bus.

Farber recalled details from the night of February night. He said he heard Asaahdi Coleman arguing with other passengers and yelling at someone on the phone. Eventually, the bus rolled into Oroville at the AMPM.

“I heard a loud pop, and my ears started to ring,” Farber said.

Farber said before the shots, he was letting a mom and her kids get off the bus before him. After the pop, he saw the mom slump over.

“I just reacted,” Farber said. “I grabbed the kid, the daughter.”

“In this process, did you ever turn around and look behind you?” Deputy District Attorney Mark Murphy said.

“Yes,” Farber said.

“Who was behind you?” the prosecutor asked.

“He was,” Farber said.

“The gentleman in the glasses and the blue shirt?” Murphy asked.

“Yes,” Farber said.

Farber said he saw Coleman messing with the gun, and then the men made eye contact.

“What did he do?” Murphy asked.

“He literally just shrugged his shoulders,” Farber said. “Like nothing, and pointed the gun and kept shooting.”

It was panic on board, and people eventually piled out. Farber was trying to help the kids of the woman shot.

“I get to about three feet from the door, shove the kids out, and my legs just give up,” Farber said.

Farber did not know at the time that he had been shot eight times.

This left him paralyzed with collapsed lungs. As Farber waited for help, he said he saw Coleman walk off.

“Did he say anything to you when he got off the bus?” Murphy asked.

“No sir,” Farber said. “He did not even look at me.”

“And you were lying on the ground right there?” Murphy asked.

“Yeah,” Farber said.

Farber said he lost everything after the shooting and worries he will be homeless.

“I ran out of money I had saved,” Farber said. “Like I said, I don’t have a family; I can't ask for help; its just me.”

Whitley was sitting near Farber on the bus. She was 25 weeks pregnant the night of the shooting and gave birth to her baby just 22 days later.

Whitley and Farber both traveled to the courtroom from Washington to testify. Action News Now talked with Whitley briefly, and she showed us a picture of her little girl - now two years old, but still fighting through the effects of that night.

“She still has her breathing tube,” Whitley said. “From what else I’ve been told, she’s partially blind and partially deaf.”

Whitley still has back pain from where shrapnel is stuck in her tailbone, nerve damage to her leg and scarring on her face from the gunshot. Whitley said she did not see the shooter before she passed out.

“When you woke up on the bus, was the shooting stopped?” Murphy asked.

“The shooting stopped, and that’s why I got myself up and ran off the bus as fast as I could,” Whitley said.

Inside the courtroom, Coleman was shifting back and forth and writing notes, as he did last week. But there were also times he seemed visibly agitated, mumbling to his attorney, even shaking his head during some testimony.

While he appeared to wipe his face last week when body cam footage was played, there was little reaction during testimony today.

Then, on April 15, closing arguments were delivered.

Deputy Nina Galvez testified she was working inside the jail the night of the shooting when Asaahdi Coleman was brought in.

She said she had about 100 interactions with Coleman over the first few months he was in jail. Both deputies who took the stand described Coleman’s behavior. They say he didn’t talk, would wrap his head and body in sheets and clothes and mimic shooting a gun when deputies would go by his cell.

“I would notice that he had clothing wrapped around his head, clothing wrapped around his waist,” Galvez said. “He would have his sheets, his blankets, kind of wrapped around his body. It was very odd behavior. You would ask him questions, he would never respond, but he was either like rapping or singing, or pretending to shoot.”

The defense rested its case after the two deputies spoke. The prosecution then called a rebuttal witness to the stand - a Walmart employee working the night of the shooting. The employee said he called 911 that night because Coleman was inside the store screaming - saying he shot people on a bus.

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