NORFOLK — Jahari George was hanging out with his girlfriend and two other friends on the Saturday before Labor Day two years ago.
The group of Norfolk State University students started the day by attending a tailgate party and football game, followed by more gatherings on campus. As the day wound down, they sat in the car of George’s girlfriend, listening to music and smoking marijuana.
Sometime after 10 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2023, a car pulled up next to them, then drove off, according to testimony offered Wednesday by George’s girlfriend, Anaya Northern.
“Jahari was saying how it was weird,” Northern said before breaking into tears.
About a half-hour later, gunshots from a passing vehicle crashed through the car’s windows. George, who was in the driver’s seat, was struck once in the head. The 20-year-old engineering student from Maryland was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“I started panicking because I saw how he looked when he got shot,” Northern said as she recalled the moments after the shooting. “His head was leaning to the side, his mouth was open and there was blood everywhere.”
The group quickly got out of the car and began calling 911, she said. Northern also called George’s mother, her mother and her sister. She told police the car she saw that night was a Dodge Charger, the same kind of vehicle she drove.
Using surveillance videos, Flock cameras and cell phone data, police later tracked down the vehicle and arrested three suspects. Charges against one were later dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Still charged in the case are Camari L. Warren and Cameron C. Brown. Both were 18 at the time of the shooting.
Warren’s trial on charges of second-degree murder, conspiracy and using a firearm to commit a felony got underway Wednesday in Norfolk Circuit Court. Brown, who prosecutors allege was the shooter, is scheduled for trial in October. Anthony Pugh, whom prosecutors said was with them that night, is among the witnesses expected to testify against them.
Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Bailey told jurors in his opening statements that George was not the intended target, nor was anyone else in the car that night. Northern and the other two occupants testified they knew of no one who would want to hurt George or them.
“He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Bailey said.
Defense attorney James Broccoletti told jurors Pugh’s upcoming testimony was not to be trusted. The lawyer said Pugh agreed to testify against the others in an effort to save himself from being charged.
Broccoletti said Pugh was driving the Dodge Charger when police stopped it, and that a gun he had with him had been used in a shootout about a month before George was killed.
Warren’s trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday, but was delayed after an insufficient number of people showed up for jury duty. It will continue Thursday and is expected to last three to four days.
Jane Harper, [email protected]
