Sentencing for Hershel Dale Graham

The sentencing for Hershel Dale Graham, convicted of Manslaughter in the intentional shooting of David Martin Andrasik (pictured), will be May 17th in Franklin County. One of our readers who attended the trial has sent us this commentary:

David was already in his car halfway seated & WAS leaving when Hershel's son ran out to the street RIPPED his own shirt off, cussed, etc demanding David get back in the yard and they would settle things.. DAVID WAS LEAVING.. If you are so fearful for your life why would you call someone back in the yard & be the aggressor in that manner?? David never touched any of them & that was proven in court by eye witnesses NOT related to the shooter at all. Those EW's gave polar opposite testimonies compared to the shooter's EW statements as to what happened. 

During the time Elijah Graham was antagonizing David back into the yard & the school teacher who drove up to EW all of this was the ONLY one who bothered to call 911 & the other neighbor EW's said that Hershel Graham disappeared out of sight around the house for around a minute or 2. Many believe that is when he went & got the gun..yet HE HAD PLENTY OF TIME THEN to call police but he chose a gun. He then began walking toward David, David walked toward him, no words were exchanged, nothing physical whatsoever from David & when David got about 3 ft from Hershel Graham out of nowhere & no warning Hershel jerked this gun out & fired it into David's chest hitting him in the heart going thru 3 chambers of his heart, fractured his T9 vertebra lodging there causing epidural leakage. 

He claimed he had warned David he had a gun.. the other EW's said NO that did not happen. He also claimed David shoved him really hard & as he was falling back he pulled gun up & fired it THINKING he was firing a warning shot & again the other EW's not related to Hershel said NO that is not what happened. They all said they were stunned, thought in NO WAY it was escalated that far, completely stunned by what they had just seen happen. After he shot David THEY ADMITTED THAT THEY ALL STOOD (4 or 5 people present during all of it) & watched David laying there struggling, grabbing at his wound, even giving accounts that he was gurgling on perhaps blood clearly fighting to breath & NOT ONE offered him any aid whatsoever... before anyone goes judging David they need to know ALL the facts & not just what the other side is claiming. THESE ARE ALL FACTS from court.

Also when the lady who witnessed pulled up and the ONLY ONE who called 911 she saw David laying on the ground & HE WAS THE ONLY ONE SCREAMING for help.. THE ONLY ONE the ENTIRE time screaming for any help. He also went to the neighbors across the street for help.. again he was the ONLY one who went for any assistance/help. He had no weapon on him & he never touched anyone of them other than a possible chest bump ALL ACCORDING TO EW's NOT related to the shooter. The neighbors also admitted to letting David come inside their home, he was not in any way making threats to them, etc.. they said they were NOT afraid of him at all, that he came and told them that the son had just tried to kill him by running over him with a truck & he needed help.. 

They didn't really know what to do but said had they known it was gonna end like this they would have kept him there with them,etc.. all the EW's for the prosecution were just devastated that it went down like this and was totally uncalled for, senseless & not justified. They all said David did NOTHING to deserve that nor did anything for there to be need of a gun.

I also don't think the school teacher had arrived yet when Elijah struck David which he tried to squirm his way out of on the stand. When she pulled up she I believe stated that she saw David laying on the ground.. unsure where exactly but said he was screaming for help & with tears she struggled to say I called 911 because that was the best help I could offer him.. he had NOT been shot at that point.. when the 911 call was played you hear her say that there are 4 men fighting (she cleared it up saying she meant verbal, NOTHING physical) she then described David as being in a black sweat suit barefoot.

She told them a car was in the road & had her blocked.. the Red Bay PD or EMT she was talking too kept her on the phone while she gave address,etc.. and then you hear a POP in the background and she said OMG.. He has just shot him in the chest.. and kept repeating OMG (the actual words) over and over, and toward the end of the conversation she told them David was no longer moving. She was as calm as she could be under the circumstances.. David was shot I would think around 5:37 because cops didn't get there until 93 seconds AFTER David had already been shot, an ambulance was en route but they were unable to give David any aid until the scene was declared safe so I would think David laid there several minutes for them to do that.. precious minutes... especially in the shape he was in.. He basically bled out or to death. They began chest compression's on him when they lost a pulse in the Ambulance and continued CPR until the hospital. He died 20 minutes later if the death cert time is accurate saying 6:30pm.

If you would like to recommend the maximum 20 year sentence for Graham, you may contact Judge Terry Dempsey at:

256-332-8893

Teresa.Seal@Alacourt.gov

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Perhaps many have never considered just what the Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI) does or doesn't do. Here's a description from their own website:

Welcome to the Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI) Division. The ABI functions as the investigative branch of the Alabama Department of Public Safety (DPS) and is one of six divisions of the Department. The ABI provides investigation services in support of other members of the criminal justice system in Alabama. In addition to criminal investigations, the ABI also delivers several other services through the various components of the division such as the Latent Print Unit, and Hazardous Devices Unit (Bomb Squad) to assist our partners in the law enforcement community. The ABI is not a first responder agency and investigations are conducted upon request by a criminal justice agency. Members of the ABI also provide law enforcement services for operations with the other DPS divisions, such as in times of natural disaster and other special details.

In other words, you just can't pick up the phone and accuse someone you don't like of committing  a crime; just doesn't work that way...even for family of former police chiefs, we understand.



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