By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
The second trial for Naveed Haq began on Wed., Oct. 21 at the King County Superior Court. Haq, 34, the man who wounded five women and killed one at the office of the Jewish Federation in July of 2006, first stood trial in the spring of 2008. But after almost six weeks of testimony, members of the jury were unable to agree on 14 of the 15 counts against Haq.
This time around, the charges against Haq have been lessened to eight counts in hopes of decreasing the number of points the new jury must agree upon to reach a verdict.
Again, Haq is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, with the defense claiming that mental illness aggravated by changes in his medication and treatment led Haq to attack the Jewish Federation.
“If Mr. Haq was not mentally ill, you would have the perfect cold-blooded killing. But the evidence will show that this was because of an illness,” defense attorney John Carpenter said during his opening statement.
Carpenter cited erratic behavior, road rage incidents, increased paranoia and an inability to hold a job as evidence of Haq’s declining mental state in the months prior to the shootings. He noted, however, that Haq had always been attentive to his own mental health needs, seeking out treatment from the time he was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder in college until just three days before the attack at the Jewish Federation when he checked in with his medication nurse.
“Something that’s consistent in Mr. Haq’s history is that he has always sought help,” Carpenter said, later adding that, “It was the mental illness and medication that caused this shift .”
Senior deputy prosecutor Don Raz argued that although Haq clearly suffers from mental illness, his actions cannot be attributed to his disorder. Rather, the shootings were a deliberate choice made out of anger, not delusion.
“Naveed Haq’s mental illness did not cause him to attack the Jewish Federation,” Raz said. “His anger did.”
Raz pointed to well-thought-out documents Haq had written on a computer at his parents’ home in Pasco in the days before the shooting that detailed his frustration with both Israel’s war with Lebanon, which had been occurring at that time, and the U.S.‘s involvement in the Middle East. Raz then described the process Haq went through to acquire the guns and ammunition he used for the attack, as well as his Internet searches that led him to learn about the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, all of which, according to Raz, indicated rational premeditation on Haq’s part.
“He said he was doing this just to make a political statement,” Raz said. “In this day and age, what’s the quickest way to make a point? Get a gun, shoot a bunch of people and get on CNN.”
In his opening statement, Raz also made reference to including newly admitted evidence to this trial, specifically, the phone calls that Haq made to his parents from jail in the days following his arrest in which he allegedly said he was proud of what he had done and assumed he would be hailed as a celebrity.
In pretrial hearings, deputy prosecutor Erin Ehlert argued that the phone calls reflect Haq’s state of mind most closely to the time of the shootings, including his initial justifications for why he committed the attack and ought to be heard by the jury. They had not been heard during the first trial in 2008.
“Why a person does something is extremely relevant,” Ehlert said.
Judge Paris K. Kallas agreed to allow the jury to hear the phone calls.
The trial’s first week focused primarily on testimony four of the five surviving victims of the shooting, Carol Goldman, Cheryl Stumbo, Christina Rexroad and Layla Bush.
The first witness to take the stand was Kelsey Burkum, the teenage niece of Federation staffer Cheryl Stumbo, whom Haq used to gain entrance to the building by holding a gun to her back when she came to the front door.
Testimony was also heard from other Federation employees who escaped unharmed and police who responded to 911 calls.
Ilana Kennedy, education director at the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, whose office is located on the first floor of the Jewish Federation building, described for the jury her reaction once she realized gunshots were being fired in the rooms above her.
“I grabbed my coworker and headed out the door. Outside the building I could still hear the screaming from the second floor. I just stood there on the sidewalk,” Kennedy said.
The prosecution then played a recording of the 911 call Kennedy made in which screams could be heard in the background.
Officer William Collins and detective Thomas Mooney of the Seattle Police Department were part of a crew of four officers who arrested Haq after he agreed, while speaking to 911 operators, to surrender. They described how quickly the attack played out, with Haq in police custody a matter of minutes after they first arrived on the scene.
When asked about Haq’s demeanor at the time of his arrest, Mooney replied that he “appeared calm.”
However, defense attorney Carpenter made clear in his opening remarks to the court that the defense will attempt to show that although Haq appeared in control of himself at the time of the shooting, the choices that led Haq to commit the shooting were not decisions he would have made had he not been suffering from mental illness.
The trial is expected to continue into late November or early December.