Prosecutors have alleged that James Ellis Grant, 25, shot at a Trenton police SUV as it cruised down Stuyvesant Avenue on May 14, 2012.
James Ellis Grant Prosecutors have alleged that James Ellis Grant, 25, shot at a Trenton police SUV as it cruised down Stuyvesant Avenue on May 14, 2012, in retaliation for the death of Orenthia "Pookie" Upshur, the 20-year-old brother of Deasia Clegg, 24.
Clegg, who is Grant’s girlfriend and the mother of his child, said today that the two men stopped speaking in March 2012 because Upshur “was going down a wrong path.”
“He had cut all tied with my brother at the end of March,” Clegg said.
A man who said he saw Grant shoot at the police testified on Tuesday that Grant was at his house the day of Upshur’s funeral.
“James was sitting on my porch, he was crying. I asked him what was wrong, he said he came from a funeral,” the unnamed witness said.
But Clegg this morning said Ellis did not attend either the funeral or the burial, and went to a gathering afterward only because she asked him to. He arrived 45 minutes late and spent the rest of the evening with her, she said.
Upshur slammed his car into a utility pole in Chambersburg after allegedly driving 100 mph through the city. Police said they attempted to follow him but could not catch up before the crash.
Prosecutor Lew Korngut asked Clegg if her family blamed the Trenton Police Department for Upshur’s death.
“No, that’s false. To this day they don’t know what happened,” Clegg said.
Korngut said Upshur’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit with the department, but Clegg said her mother never mentioned the lawsuit.
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