An unarmed black 18-year-old in southern Virginia did not charge at a police officer before being fatally shot, a witness testified on Friday, contradicting the officer’s explanation for why he opened fire.

William Chapman was shot dead by officer Stephen Rankin from about five yards after taking a boxing-style stance and asking mockingly: “Are you going to fucking shoot me?” according to Gregory Provo.



“He never charged, he just made a gesture,” said Provo, a security worker at a Walmart superstore in Portsmouth. Describing Chapman’s actions as a “jab step” intended to make an opponent flinch, he demonstrated to jurors what he meant by momentarily jerking his upper body forward.



Rankin, 36, is charged with first-degree murder for shooting Chapman in the face and chest in the store’s parking lot during a confrontation over an alleged shoplifting on 22 April last year. Rankin, who had killed another unarmed man four years earlier, has pleaded not guilty, claiming he fired in self-defense.



William Chapman. Photograph: Family photo

Addressing jurors on Thursday, Rankin’s attorney, James Broccoletti, argued that the officer was left with no choice but to shoot, because instead of obeying Rankin’s instructions to get on the ground, Chapman “lunges, he charges, he moves towards the officer”.



Under robust cross-examination by Broccoletti on Friday, Provo insisted that Chapman did not advance towards the officer, and disagreed that the 18-year-old’s actions amounted to “lunging”. Provo said: “He was never moving towards him or lunging towards him”. He added that it was clear Chapman had nothing in his hands, which he said were at his side and “balled up” as fists.



Provo told jurors that he vomited after watching Rankin handcuff Chapman, who had slumped to the ground. One bullet passed through Chapman’s heart.

One of the first officers to arrive on the scene testified on Thursday that when he asked Rankin what had happened, Rankin replied that Chapman “was reaching for something”.



Provo, who had called 911 to report the suspected shoplifting, testified that after guiding the officer to Chapman, he ended up standing beside Rankin ready to assist when the officer stepped back from Chapman and opened fire. He ran over to the confrontation from his car after seeing that the encounter had become heated, he said.

After some “yelling” between Rankin and Chapman, the officer placed Chapman over the hood of his patrol car, according to Provo. But Chapman then swung around, apparently trying to escape the officer.



Sandra Tynes, a Walmart customer who witnessed part of the incident, told jurors on Thursday that she saw Rankin and Chapman “tussling” and watched them “pushing each other back and forth with their hands”.



A snatched piece of video footage of the struggle that was recorded by Rankin’s Taser and played in court on Friday appeared to show Rankin delivering a so-called “drive stun” shock to Chapman. The recording then ended abruptly. Rankin’s attorneys claim Chapman knocked the weapon out of the officer’s hand, sending it crashing to the ground and disabling the camera.

A state forensics expert, who inspected Rankin’s Taser, said that data he downloaded from the weapon stated its trigger was pulled twice during the time of the confrontation. Rankin, a US navy veteran, has since been terminated from his job by the city of Portsmouth.



Following Provo’s testimony, commonwealth’s attorney Stephanie Morales, who is leading the prosecution of Rankin, rested her case after just a day and a half. Broccoletti immediately requested that Judge Johnny Morrison dismiss the murder charge against Rankin along with a charge of illegally using a gun to commit a felony.



Broccoletti argued that even in the “best-case scenario” for the prosecution they had simply failed to present evidence amounting to murder. “At best, what they have shown the court, and what could possibly go forward to the jury, would be a case of voluntary manslaughter,” he said.



“What we have at best is provocation, heat of passion and then a response to that in which the defendant has acted not in the cool of a mind but as a result of the passion.”



Morales argued that there was “a significant amount of evidence before the court” pointing to premeditation, which under Virginia law could have been developed by a defendant “in an instant”.

Stressing that Chapman was unarmed, Morales said: “There was no reason to fear that anything deadly was going to come as a result of Mr Chapman or his actions.”

The judge denied the request from Rankin’s team, meaning that the former officer remains charged with murder. The trial is expected to continue into next week.



On Friday afternoon, Morrison said he was barring evidence that both sides had hoped to use to bolster their cases. The judge said he wanted to exclude “side issues” that could be prejudicial.



The decision means that jurors will not be told about the gloomy mobile messages, which were transmitted on a police car console, sent by Rankin to a colleague about 90 minutes before the shooting, in which he discussed his hatred for his job, declared “people are just bad”, said the city of Portsmouth “sucks” and alluded to the condemned biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Chapman’s juvenile offenses committed between the ages of 13 and 15 – including convictions for assault and “brandishing a firearm on school property” relating to a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun – will also be barred from the trial, Morrison ruled. Rankin’s attorneys had hoped to cite Chapman’s record as proof of aggressive or turbulent behavior.